How Does James Bond Connect to a Real-Life Financial Scheme?

There’s a very good reason that, despite an abundance of real-world financial misdeeds, most action movies tend to look elsewhere for their antagonists. There are some exceptions to this rule: The Other Guys featureed a Bernie Madoff-inspired plotline, and the climax of The Untouchables involved Al Capone’s accountant — but the latter film is almost 40 years old, which might make it the exception that proves the rule.

And yet, a recent article in Air Mail does manage to invoke both the James Bond films and what certainly looks like financial fraud. The article, by Marianka Swain, chronicles the complicated legacy of a now-deceased wealth manager named Eric Freymond. Several of Freymond’s clients have accused him of stealing money from them; one of the most high-profile examples is Ursula Andress, whose filmography includes playing Honey Ryder in Dr. No.

As Air Mail reports, Andress believes that Freymond is responsible for the loss of the vast majority of her $25 million estate. She isn’t the only high-profile figure accusing Freymond of, shall we say, creative accounting: businessman Nicolas Puech, a descendent of Thierry Hermès, has argued that Freymond sold Puech’s shares of his ancestor’s company, depriving him of billions. (Puech himself is an intriguing figure for numerous reasons, as the New York Times chronicled last year.)

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Wall Street Journal reporter Nick Kostov called Freymond “one of the great fraudsters of the 21st century.” Freymond’s death in 2025 has not settled the matter; in fact, as Kostov reported, it’s only made things more complicated. This is not the stuff of globetrotting espionage films, to be sure — but given that the medium has a fondness for con artists and grifters, it wouldn’t be terribly surprising to see Freymond’s story on the big or small screen before long.

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Tobias Carroll

Tobias Carroll lives and writes in New York City, and has been covering a wide variety of subjects — including (but not limited to) books, soccer and drinks — for many years. His writing has been published by the likes of the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, Literary Hub, Vulture, Punch, the New York Times and Men’s Journal. At InsideHook, he has…