In this week’s Gossage Gossip, our columnist discusses France’s ‘crime of the century’, and how one production company is bringing the subject matter to the small screen.
TV series production company Kelija Productions has acquired the exclusive adaptation rights to Julie Madar’s book about French carbon fraudster Marco Mouly and his run from the law. In 2016, Mouly was sentenced to eight years in prison for embezzling hundreds of millions of euros from the French Government – cash made through committing carousel fraud via the EU Emissions Trading Scheme around 2010.
Deeming his sentence too harsh, the conman – one of several behind what was labelled France’s ‘crime of the century’ – managed to flee the country without a passport, spending his first few weeks on the run as a millionaire holidaymaker across Europe, with the intention of eventually claiming asylum in Israel. Mouly spent the next five months in 14 different countries, until he was eventually arrested by Interpol in Geneva. He was also the subject of a Netflix documentary, Lords of Scam, which was released last year.