Where is ‘The Masked Scammer’ Gilbert Chikli now?

It's the type of scam so outrageous it needed its own Netflix documentary.

For years, con man Gilbert Chikli and his team of fraudsters were able to swindle executives out of millions of dollars by impersonating CEOs and presidents of companies.

Using silicone masks, disguised voices, and replicating furniture in the offices of high-power individuals, Chikli conducted a movie-like scam that captured the public's attention in 2015 and 2019.

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Now his case is being highlighted again in a new Netflix documentary called The Masked Scammer.

Through interviews with his victims and accomplices, Netflix is revealing the details of Chikli and his scams for the public's entertainment.

For those interested in learning more, here's everything to know about Chikli and his scam.

Who is Gilbert Chikli?

Chikli, 56, is a Franco-Israeli man who began scamming people out of money in the early 2000s in the wake of 9/11 and other terrorist attacks.

Known as France's biggest con man, Chikli has been the subject of a movie called Thank You For Calling, a podcast called Persona: The French Deception, and now a Netflix documentary.

What did Gilbert Chikli do?

With confidence, charisma, and wit, Chikli was able to trick wealthy people over the phone into giving him massive sums of money by pretending to be French business executives.

Beginning in 2005, Chikli would call middle managers at companies he was targeting and pretend to be the CEO and asking for money to be sent to fake accounts.

He was found for his crimes and setennced in absentia in 2015 by a French court.

However, shorlty after getting out of jail, Chikli was up to his old tricks again.

Most notriously, the con man created an elaborate scheme in which he pretended to be Jean-Yves Le Drian, the former French Minister of Defence, in 2017.

Jean-Yves Le Drian, the former French Minister of DefenceGetty Images

With Skype, Chikli and his co-scammers used a fake silicone mask and recreated Le Drain's office furniture to get French elites to send them more than 80 million euros.

After fleeing to Ukraine, Chikli was arrested in 2019 alongside his co-plotter Anthony Lasarevitsch.

Where is Gilbert Chikli now?

In 2020, Chikli was sentenced to 11 years in French jail and ordered to pay a €2m fine. He currently remains there.

Chikli at a court in Kiev, Ukraine in 2017.Getty Images

The Masked Scammer was released on Thursday, 1 December on Netflix.

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