After a US extradition request, a suspected con artist who reportedly impersonated prominent female Hollywood executives and defrauded budding stars of hundreds of thousands of dollars was detained in Manchester.

The suspect, dubbed the ‘Con Queen of Hollywood,’ led detectives on a years-long, global manhunt that has been optioned for a book.

He was identified in an unsealed court indictment Thursday as Hargobind Tahilramani, a 41-year-old Indonesian man.

The FBI is looking into the alleged fraud, which they say started in 2013.

Law enforcement officials believe Tahilramani, who was known as Gobind Tahil at the time of his arrest, impersonated powerful female figures, including Amy Pascal and Kathleen Kennedy from Hollywood, and then used these personas to persuade people working in the creative arts to travel to Indonesia on the promise of work. The marks paid cash for logistical services such as driving and fixing once they arrived, with the hope of refund later. The projects were never realized, and the funds gone.

According to the papers, Mr Tahilramani would “use fake accents and alter his voice to sound like a woman.”

Wendi Deng, Rupert Murdoch’s estranged wife, was also reportedly aced by the master of accents, as were a number of male movie executives.

Tahilramani is said to have threatened violence if anybody questioned his false identification.

According to the papers, if targets protested or showed skepticism, Tahilramani would threaten to “dismember” the victim.

Over the last five or six years, it’s been estimated that between $1.5 million and $2 million has been stolen, with the most of it ending up in the hands of the culprit.

District Judge David Robinson said there were significant grounds to think Mr Tahilramani would fail to surrender to the court in the future if he was given release, so he was remanded in jail for another 28 days during a hearing on Friday at Westminster Magistrates Court.

Mr Tahilramani was detained by police in Manchester last week with the help of private detectives from K2 Integrity, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

According to an FBI spokesman in San Diego, California, “The defendant has been arrested in the United Kingdom based on a request for his provisional arrest submitted by the United States with a view towards his extradition.”

Tahilramani was apprehended during an early-morning raid. The arrest was the result of a multi-jurisdictional investigation that had lasted more than a year. Late last week, Tahilramani came before a magistrate in Manchester, accompanied by a government-appointed defense attorney. He is being held for a ruling on whether or not he should be extradited to the United States. Officials in the United States seek to prosecute him with offenses linked to the scheme.

The fraud started in 2013, and it went on despite worldwide Covid travel prohibitions until last August, when victims were instead asked to pay for non-existent training Videos.

K2 co-founder Jules Kroll claimed in a statement to AFP that the company has assisted US, British, and Indonesian authorities in ‘bringing the individual known as the ‘Con Queen of Hollywood’ to justice.’

Last month, investigative podcast “Chameleon: Hollywood Con Queen” “unmasked” Tahilramani – also known as Gobind Lal Tahil – as a potential culprit in the strange hoax.

According to the victims, the scammer seemed to choose attractive, muscular guys as his primary targets, and he even fooled some of them into having phone sex with him by asking them to read out a sex scene from a phony movie screenplay.

Screenwriters, make-up artists, production staff, trainers, and stuntmen have all been targeted.

He now faces eight federal counts, including wire fraud, conspiracy, and identity theft, if he is extradited.