This gripping and pacy French thriller explores ‘the scam of the century’

Of Money and Blood (D’argent et de sang) ★★★★

Based on a 2018 book by investigative journalist Fabrice Arfi about a crime dubbed “the scam of the century”, this polished French series declares at the outset that it is “a work of fiction based on real events”, adding that it “aspires to be art, not documentary”.

Ramzy Bedia as Alain Fitoussi, the flamboyant, illiterate, motor-mouthed dandy behind the so-called scam of the century that stole billions of dollars from the French government.Credit: SBS

The first foray into TV by filmmaker Xavier Giannoli (Marguerite, Lost Illusions), it’s a gripping and intelligently crafted thriller dealing with a scheme to steal billions from the French government and those involved in the case on both sides of the law.

Any films or TV series taking on this kind of material have their work cut out for them. Financial crime doesn’t make for spectacle and much of the grunt-work required can look downright dull: law-enforcement officers sitting at computers, trawling through bank statements, phone records, surveillance photographs and CCTV footage, occasionally scribbling diagrams on whiteboards.
Unlike other crimes favoured on screen – murders, bombings, robberies – it’s not visually arresting, so making it engaging is a challenge. Adam McKay memorably resorted to putting Margot Robbie in a bubble bath to explain sub-prime mortgages in The Big Short.

The challenge for Giannoli, co-writer Jean-Baptiste Delafon and co-director Frederic Planchon is further magnified by the complexity of the crime, which involves the exploitation of the carbon-credits scheme established by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. To focus on and enliven the issues, they initially shape their story around a couple of radically different key characters.

First comes quietly intense customs officer Simon Weynachter (Vincent Lindon), who’s introduced giving evidence in 2017 to a regional court in Paris, recounting the history of the investigation that he headed more than a decade earlier. His testimony serves as a bridge between the flashbacks through which the story is told.

A former judge, he’s a steely-eyed civil servant who has persuaded the French government to establish a unit dedicated to investigating financial crime, arguing that “it’s easier to manipulate financial markets than to rob a bank”. He’s relentless, even obsessive, in his commitment to pursuing such criminals, arguing that stealing from the state amounts to hijacking funds that might otherwise be used for hospitals, education, roads and law enforcement.

The perpetrator whom he first identifies in his testimony is flamboyant, illiterate, motor-mouthed Alain Fitoussi (Ramzy Bedia, who’s best known as a comedy actor and grabs the role with gusto). A Tunisian immigrant nicknamed “Fitous the dandy”, he’s economically established as a loose cannon. We meet him in a fast-paced sequence in Manila, running a scam involving the establishment of shell companies around the globe. Operating in overdrive, he lies with alacrity, and bamboozles and bullies those around him.

As the tale opens out, he’s joined by his cousin, Bouli (David Ayala), who keeps a keen eye on the world’s financial markets and spots an opportunity in the emerging and unregulated carbon-trading schemes. “It’s the Wild West,” Fitoussi marvels, almost licking his lips in anticipation as they try to lure a rich investor to finance their plans. The cousins belong to a community of Jewish immigrants living in Paris’ multi-cultural Belleville, a group depicted as working-class in its origins and tribal in its loyalties.

However, the potential investor, Jerome Attias (Niels Schneider), comes from the other end of the social spectrum. The son-in-law of well-connected Jewish billionaire Ilan Frydman (Andre Marcon), he’s a cocky, thrill-seeking financial-markets trader, an avid gambler with a taste for fast, flashy cars who’s married to Ilan’s cherished daughter, Annabelle (Judith Chemla).

Vincent Lindon as customs officer Simon Weynachter in Of Money and Blood.Credit: SBS

Meanwhile, Weynachter is trying to repair his relationship with his estranged daughter (Victoire Du Bois), and, as information about their history emerges, so do insights into why this case might have become such an all-consuming mission for him.

The familial ties and social divisions between those involved in the crime establish the crooks as a combustible combination of wildly different temperaments and partially different agendas. Yet they’re united by greed and resentment of those whom they see as oppressing or disrespecting them.

The series also situates the customs agents, the crooks and their scam within the wider picture of a world dealing with the threat of climate change and the fledgling green economy. And Giannoli provides a powerful reminder of what’s at stake by periodically cutting to images of industrial towers belching smoke, ice shelves collapsing and towns destroyed by tornadoes.

Six episodes of the series are available, with the next six to come in June. It’s likely that anyone who begins this batch will want to see what happens next.

Of Money and Blood (D’argent et de sang) is on SBS On Demand.

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