Personal Managers Association
Please do read the message below from the CSA (Casting Society of America). The CDG (Casting Directors Guild) here has been engaged with this issue for the past few months. The information below was forwarded from them.
CC
SCAM WARNING AND REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
Throughout the last five years of a wide ranging worldwide Con, numerous Casting Directors have been impersonated in an attempt to give legitimacy to a scam that also has the perpetrator impersonating well known producers, directors, and studio executives.
You may or may not be familiar with it or have thought it was not ongoing. It is.
This is an FBI case, but they want to know about any activity even if it has been taking place outside of the US (actors and agents around the globe have been contacted by this con pretending to be well known casting directors)
This scam has been depicted in a recent podcast in the US as well as many articles (links to some below)
The scam is known variously as the Indonesian Scam or the Show Biz Scam or the Hollywood Con Queen scam. The podcast is called Chameleon.
Victims have been lured to travel to Indonesia, or give money to a coach on Zoom (the pandemic version) or pressured to do lewd things on the phone in the interest of âauditioningâ.
We wanted to warn you about this and also to encourage you to report anything that may have happened in the past that has been brought to your attention by actors or their reps where your name has been used. The Con uses fake email addresses, What’s app texts, and even phone calls impersonating particular casting directors. This is all very elaborate (againâ¦you can see the articles below)
Here is the link to report to the FBI investigation (even if what you have to report doesn’t include Travel to Indonesia they may well be related if any of the above seems familiarâ¦please let them know if your name has been used).
https://www.fbi.gov/resources/victim-services/seeking-victim-information/seeking-victims-in-indonesia-showbiz-scam-investigation
And here are some articles about the scam in case you are unfamiliar
https://www.marieclaire.com/culture/a30992762/hollywood-con-queen-nicoletta-kotsianas-investigator-fbi/
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/hunting-con-queen-hollywood-1125932