The fake life of American film producer Pat Andrew on the Costa del Sol

Francisco Griñán

Malaga

Friday, 28 July 2023, 17:59

The story would, in itself, make a great movie. It began at the end of 2019 with the announcement of the imminent filming in Malaga of a biker series, Marked - The Unforgiven. Weeks later, the venture got even bigger with a second project, MobKing, this time about the mafia. And when neither of the previous two had yet to see a clapper board, two other productions were announced: the spy thriller The Corruption of Justice and a crime series, Smoking Gun. All were based on the Costa del Sol.

The projects were launched by Wanda-Halcyon, a company owned by Marbella-based Hollywood producer Patrick Andrew. More than three and a half years after the announcement of the first series, the producer has not only failed to shoot a single frame, but has disappeared leaving alleged debts to companies locally, as well as taking money from investors and actors for appearing in these fake projects for which he never applied for a filming permit.

More on this story

Businessman Pat Andrew changed his name after US fraud conviction

The events could well be used as the plot for another of his thrillers, this time based on a true story - with a final twist in the script that has left more than one with a face of disbelief: at the end of April, a brief email communicated the sudden death of the American.

Under the auspices of production company Wanda-Halcyon, Pat Andrew began to launch audiovisual projects in Spain in 2017. Initially it was a television programme and a series, although neither came to fruition and little more was heard of the venture.

But from 2019, when the Costa del Sol was attracting numerous film shoots, especially series that brought more than 23 million euros in revenue in the province, the alleged producer saw his opportunity and reappeared, albeit with a very different strategy. This time it was not an isolated project, but a whole set of series - he announced as many as seven titles - that gave the impression of a stable industry and helped attract financial partners.

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The producer reached an agreement with Almeria-based communications and marketing company Hormiguea, which promoted the series from 2019. Most of them would be filmed in Malaga and Almeria, although, later, they began to “sell” the same productions in Alicante, Valencia and the Canary Islands. They always followed the same pattern: the launch of the project, the organisation of much publicised auditions, the announcement of the cast and confirmation of an upcoming shoot, which, however, never happened.

Postponements and promises of payment were the modus operandi. The important thing was not the filming, but the publicity that would attract more victims. And the pandemic, paradoxically, gave Pat Andrew the perfect alibi to justify the delays in filming.

But Covid did not stop the production company’s allegedly illicit activity. Wanda-Halcyon tried to make connections with well-known local businesses, hotels and even film stars to legitimise its nonexistent projects. Hence the blurry, black and white photo of Pat Andrew side by side with Steven Spielberg; the director is actually a wax figure at Madame Tussauds in London.

The American rented the Soho CaixaBank Theatre for casting and let it slip that Antonio Banderas would attend the auditions, which was completely denied by the Malaga actor’s company. Despite this, the call was a success with dozens of applicants and media attention. All that staging not only played with the dreams of unknown actors, but several testimonies claim that Andrew took money from those who were selected for parts.

“Pat Andrew came in holding his hands out in front of him so I could see his gold watch and he offered me a leading role because he was looking for a Spaniard who spoke English, rode a motorbike and practised martial arts. ‘I’m looking for you,’ he said, and my legs went all weak because my dream had always been to work in film. He told me that, as it was an American series, I had to join the American Screen Actors Guild and he asked me for 800 euros. It seemed logical to me because the contract he was offering me was 15,000 euros per episode. I told him to deduct it from my first salary, but he said no because he had already been dumped more than once,” said an aspiring local actor, who prefers to remain anonymous and who ended up paying for a phony and unnecessary procedure, as in Spain you can work on film shoots without having to be a member of a union or any other organisation.

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The American producer allegedly used the same move to obtain funds from both actors and investors abroad. The two figures come together in the American Bill Porter, a member of the Screen Actors Guild in his country, who combines his on-screen roles (he has appeared in Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman) with running his business, the Boston-based shoe company PortaHaus Shoe Collection.

“Pat Andrew offered me a role in the TV series Marked the Unforgiven and a product placement deal with Wanda-Halcyon. He told me I had to pay a 10,000-dollar fee for my shoes to appear in the series and on billboards throughout Spain, plus another 1,700 dollars to join the Spanish actors’ union and boots for his partners in Hormiguea,” explained the actor and designer, who paid these amounts in 2021 and has repeatedly demanded his money back from the filmmaker.

“The last time I heard from him was in April and he told me he was in hospital and that when he got out he would pay me,” added Porter, who has reported his compatriot to the US Federal Trade Commission: “He conned me out of 12,000 dollars and I hope he is brought to justice soon.”

Also on the list of victims is Malaga band Tarifa Plana, who were selected by Wanda-Halcyon to star in their own American-style reality show. Contracts were exchanged, filming dates set and a concert was announced as a pilot episode at the Soho CaixaBank Theatre. Once again, they used a serious and prestigious company, but without any real contact with it. Nothing of what had been promised was fulfilled.

“It was an eternal coitus interruptus, it never happened,” said Luismi Grayonay, the group’s vocalist. The band, however, lost revenue by cancelling events to meet the shooting schedule. “It left our credibility in tatters,” he said. American biker George Christie and Swiss writer George Van Mellaert were used in a similar way. Their books (Marked - The Unforgiven and Corruption of Justice, respectively) were bought for alleged filming that never went beyond good intentions.

Hotels in Malaga have also allegedly fallen victim to Pat Andrew over the past three years. In July 2020, the producer announced auditions for the series Corruption of Justice at the Miramar Hotel and used the elegant setting to claim that he had Amazon executives staying there. The following year, in December 2021, still without shooting even a trailer, he announced a deal with the Soho Hotels chain.

The producer himself confirmed in writing to the management of the hotel group that on 7 January 2022 the Marked - The Unforgiven team would arrive at the Soho Equitativa, for which he needed 33 rooms for 90 days - that is, 2,900 nights in total - and he assured them that he had given orders to pay 100,000 euros upfront.

However the producer had no plans to film anything; this newspaper checked with the Malaga Film Office (MFO) and he had not applied for filming permits or locations on those dates. And he took advantage of the deal to move into the hotel himself.

“For a hotel business coming out of the pandemic, a production of this level was very significant, but when January arrived they postponed the booking to February, then to March and when nothing materialised we saw that it was all talk,” said a spokesperson for Soho Hotels, who added that Pat Andrew took care of every last detail of his supposed masquerade, both wearing suits with smart shirts to his meetings and mentioning alleged connections with Malaga city council and a hypothetical “collaboration with Amazon” that supported his series.

“He was a trickster,” said a spokesman for the hotel firm, who confirmed that the filmmaker left an unpaid bill of 5,000 euros for services and rooms. Between one hotel and another, the American also lived in a penthouse next to the city’s Atarazanas Market. He allegedly stopped paying the rent and was evicted. The producer then sought advice from the Malaga lawyer AJDR - he prefers to use only his initials - who confirmed, “Pat Andrew had to leave when they cut off his water and electricity.”

Among evidence of the alleged deception is the nonexistent filming. In the case of the series, this type of production with entire seasons, as announced by the American, would involve months of filming and moving equipment around multiple locations in Malaga. However, Patrick Andrew made just one first and only attempt at filming, in 2021, as confirmed by two institutions: Malaga Film Office and the Diputación de Málaga.

The production company Wanda-Halcyon and Hormiguea publicly announced the filming on 19 April of one of the “most iconic” episodes of the series Marked the Unforgiven in La Malagueta bullring, but the MFO confirms that they never managed to provide the necessary insurance so the permit was not processed.

For its part, the provincial authority, owner of the bullring, authorised only one day of filming, but when the date approached it was met with the usual response from the production company.

“No filming took place. First they postponed and then they told us that they would let us know the new dates. And that’s as far as it went. They gave no explanation,” said Javier Gómez, the Diputación’s director of communications.

After this failed shoot, Pat Andrew continued to advertise his alleged series, organising auditions and raising funds. In 2021 there was a major business change as Wanda-Halcyon was “acquired” by the production company Global Television Operations (GTO), which was used to give financial legitimacy to the series.

However, Wanda-Halcyon was set up in 2016 in Marbella at the behest of Pat Andrew by lawyer Francisco Jiménez, who claims that his client was a “snake charmer” and that his firm never got to transfer the company to the American because “he never paid me”. As for the alleged buyer company, GTO, it actually belonged to Pat Andrew himself, who is listed as the sole administrator of the firm, which, since January 2022, has a debt of 2,638 euros.

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The creation of Global Television Operations was managed by the law firm of AJDR, who had advised the American on the eviction from the penthouse. After a few months, the lawyer realised that his client was “telling him stories, that the point of it all was to live off others and move from one hotel to another without paying”. “There are people who have gifts, and this man’s gift is that he knows how to deceive,” the lawyer said of the character’s capacity for seduction.

In 2022, the continual postponements of the filming of Marked the Unforgiven and the rest of the series promoted by Pat Andrew meant a loss of credibility among local professionals and investors, so Andrew began a silent retreat. His partners at Hormiguea, fervent backers of the producer’s promises until then, had to declare bankruptcy and in turn left their own list of debts and defaults.

Despite the alleged repeated defaults, Global Television Operations continued to talk of filming and promised to repay the amounts paid to its creditors and actors until April 2023. But on the 28th of that month, an email supposedly sent from the filmmaker’s office communicated the “sad” news of Pat Andrew’s death after a “short illness”. It did not say where he died, nor did it mention a funeral. The production company has not replied since. A plot twist apparently as phony as the producer himself.

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“I don’t believe a word about his death,” said actor and businessman Bill Porter, giving voice to what most of the people who have crossed paths with this alleged businessman think. Now they are claiming compensation from the man who took their money and, at the same time, shattered their dreams of a film career.