Kriti Mehrotra
Although born into a relatively well-off family in Jakarta, Indonesia, as the youngest of three, Hargobind “Harvey” Punjabi Tahilramani AKA Gavin Ambani reportedly didn’t have the greatest of childhoods. In fact, as explored in Apple TV+’s ‘Hollywood Con Queen,’ he was abused and bullied for being overweight, homosexual, as well as a little erratic, which made anger his sole companion. What nobody could’ve ever imagined was that he’d soon turn this anger into deception, lies, and trauma by becoming a career criminal — he’d apparently con people without any limits.
How Did Hargobind Tahilramani Earn His Money?
It was back in 1997 that 18-year-old Harvey relocated to the United States with the intention of pursuing further studies, only to kickstart his schemes of hoaxes and thefts from there. The truth is it was his engineer father who’d wanted him to test the waters in accounting at first but then allowed him to move on because it was rather evident he couldn’t follow through. That’s when this LA City College student found his passion in the world of debate/speech, just to soon be embarrassingly disqualified from a national tournament owing to blatant plagiarism.
Little did any of Harvey’s peers know he’d end up writing a serious suicide note naming the people who had blown the whistle on him a mere month later, shocking all of them to the very core. However, everything turned upside down a year later as a few team members began receiving e-mail bomb/death threats in the build-up to nationals, and the former turned out to be responsible. The authorities were actually able to ascertain they were all coming from Indonesia, where Harvey had returned to in 2001 following the aforementioned fiasco, plus burglary charges against him.
According to court documents and the original production, Harvey wasn’t ever indicted for the threats, yet he was apprehended for some misappropriation of public funds as well as other thefts. Then, following quite a bit of family drama, his forced admittance to a holistic retreat for conversion therapy, and his hospitalization for bipolar disorder diagnosis, he was arrested in his homeland. As per records, he’d swindled quite a few people — known and unknown — by telling them outright lies by 2007, which eventually resulted in him being sent away to the local Cipinang Penentoary.
Nevertheless, instead of turning over a new leaf, Harvey continued his criminal ways — in fact, he went as far as to call the Four Seasons to place a large order for all inmates and never paid for it. His sentence was thus increased by a year, after which he was given an ultimatum to either remain behind bars or head to a mental health institution for treatment, only for him to try and do neither. He actually rebelled against this by calling in a bomb threat to the US Embassy, with indications of bombings at the FBI as well as at the Pentagon too, causing more years to be added to his term.
In the end, Harvey walked away from prison in 2011, after he allegedly decided to impersonate business plus entertainment executives to target young freelancers financially and psychologically. According to the show, he did a few test runs in his homeland before moving to the UK, which is where he expanded this scam, chose to go by the name Gavin, and even established his PureBytes food blog on Instagram in the hopes of becoming a renowned influencer. However, everything changed in 2020 as the officials began closing in on him, that is, until his confirmed arrest from Manchester in early December — we specify only “arrest” because this alleged Hollywood Con Queen is fighting his extradition to the US at the moment.
Hargobind Punjabi Tahilramani’s Net Worth
Despite the fact Harvey never got any family inheritance following his parents’ demise at the request of his two sisters, owing to his behavior, we do know that he led a rather opulent life in the UK. It’s also unclear precisely how much he earned during his two years of running the since-deleted PureBytes social media account since his number of followers/engagement is completely unknown, but it is believed to be a reasonable average of $500 a month. So, when this gets combined with the fact he has been accused of conning over 500 professionals out of $2 million in nearly a decade with no accomplice, his estimated net worth as of writing is also close to $2 million. However, if Harvey is convicted, his net worth will quickly fall to zero since he’d be required to pay back his victims.
Read More: Where is Hargobind “Harvey” Punjabi Tahilramani Now?
