Hollywood Scam: Representative Investors Cheated $ 227 Million
scam
How An Unknown Actor Defrauded Hollywood Investors For $ 227 Million
Zach Avery (second from right) couldn’t get past movies like “The Devil Below”.
© Courtesy Everett Collection / / Picture Alliance
It was his life turn. Zach Avery was just a small number in front of the camera, then made it big as a dealer of broadcast rights. But everything had to be a scam. The damage is $ 227 million.
Zach Avery is an actor with a respectable, but not impressive, Hollywood career. In the movie Fury, he played an unknown SS doctor, and had a lead role in inexpensive horror films like “You’re Not Alone.” Now it was caught as a very large fish. Federal authorities accuse him of fraud on a large scale; Zachary Joseph Horowitz, his real name, is said to have cheated US $ 227 million.
His business idea was to trade in movie rights to streaming services like HBO and Netflix. At least that’s what he’s supposed to show to investors who paid off in his company 1inMM Capital LLC. He is accused of telling investors that he wants to sell the film rights to live broadcasting companies abroad, particularly in Latin America.
It is claimed to be a safe investment
In 2015, he sent potential investors a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label and a flyer mentioning a “library” of 52 films his company is allowed to distribute in Africa, Australia, New Zealand and South America. Fraud can go on fine for a long time because it was a classic pyramid scheme. This means that Horowitz has raised enough new money for a long time. With these new funds, he was able to distribute the profits to older investors. Profits not already present.
In the brochures, he claims that 1inMM Capital offers safe investments and that there are no risks. The company will first look for a binding buyer for the rights to the movie before spending its own money on licensing. The project seemed credible because many of the alleged clients were small local services. Horowitz allegedly served these niche markets that the big players would not be bothered by. Films were also known, but were not particularly successful in the cinema.
A life of luxury
In fact, some of the money was used to pay off old investors, and the rest financed the life of the actor, who bought a $ 6 million mansion among other things. Things went smoothly for about four years. But at the core of the pyramid scheme the ball turns into an avalanche. In 2019, Avery wasn’t able to raise enough new money to continue lubricating the machine. He had to put off his investors. And fraudulent correspondence with Netflix and HBO, which promised to make a profit and explain why the payments were stalled. The prosecution said, “In fact, neither Horowitz nor 1inMM Capital had any email correspondence with Netflix or HBO. Neither Horowitz nor 1inMM Capital had a business relationship with Netflix or HBO.”
According to the FBI, Horowitz has been in red since December 2019 with more than $ 160 million in deposits, plus $ 59 million in alleged profits. Funds are unlikely to appear again.
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