Introducing Season One of Chameleon: Hollywood Con Queen
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The only way I can describe it is blind panic, fear. The consulate basically said to me, "Listen, what I would like you to do is put your passport in your bra, pack your bags and head straight for the airport." Hello? I want to tell you the story of one of the wildest scams in history. A scam that's almost unbelievable when you understand the scope of it. It begins out of the blue with a random email or phone call.

This doesn't sound quite right. There.

Having worked a couple of impersonation cases, it was immediately apparent that this was not, we weren't dealing with the same type of person.

basically. Very smart, multiple languages, master of accents, highly educated. Whoever does this is a genius. You know, somebody who's sort of a psychopath. Check what's next, go and cash your bad checks. From the co-creator of The Clearing and the host of Tabloid, Chameleon. Chameleon.

I'm Josh Dean, and for the past year I've been working with Vanessa Gregoriatis, another investigative journalist, to get to the bottom of one of the strangest cons in recent memory. We've chased leads across six countries and three continents. We're obsessed with this. And one way or another, we're going to find out who's behind it. In order to figure it out, we're going to have to spend a lot of time in a place where, in a sense, everyone's pulling a scam.

A place where people make a living pretending to be someone they're not. Hollywood. The lure of the movie business is that it can change your life in an instant. Overnight success. It's the American dream. I get a call from Mark saying, "Hey, we've got this movie. It started being greenlit." All these things. Think about this. You're a personal trainer or a makeup artist or a day player just trying to work your way up through the Hollywood hierarchy. And then, out of the blue, this woman calls you with a dream job. Hello?

Finally, your big break in the industry. He essentially had this thing presented to him on a silver platter. I must admit I got extremely excited when I saw the email come through. On the other end of the phone is one of the most powerful women in Hollywood. Ready and able to change your life. There's just one catch. To work on this movie, you have to get yourself to Indonesia. And you need to leave immediately.

Hundreds of freelancers in Hollywood jumped at the chance. They paid their own airfare, and fronted money for a driver, too.

And when they landed in Jakarta, everything seemed great. The driver was there with a signpost with my name on it. There's like a guy holding a sign with the master, which was the name of the film. It was a really nice hotel. The porter was lovely. Nice lobby, marble floors, infinity pool. There's Wi-Fi and the next day I'm supposed to do this audition. We're supposed to take a flight to go meet the line producer who is there. When am I going to meet the director? I'm going to meet the director, yes?

And then something really weird happened. There was no director. There was no producer. There was no movie.

This is a scam that spans the globe and boggles the mind. It's a story that sounds like a Hollywood movie. The guy of this deception is a mysterious figure known as the Queen of Hollywood. And the scam artist is still at large. It was this criminal mastermind genius whose cons weren't just logistical, they were art.

Coming this fall from Campside Media, Chameleon, the incredible true story of the Hollywood con queen scam and our obsessive quest to end it. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Please help me. Where are you taking me?