Man who faked suicide after scamming millions now the subject of a documentary
Rural Paphos is an unlikely location for the effective headquarters of a search for an international fraudster and scam artist. However, on the edge of the village of Anarita, one man is hard at work to do exactly that.
And the whole ordeal has caught the attention of streaming platform Discovery+ which is due to screen the man’s plight as part of its documentary series called The Faking Dead which is due to air later this month, though the specific date has not been released.
Sean Flynn is a British national who has lived in Cyprus for almost 20 years, operating the Freedom Divers Cyprus diving school.
He is not your archetypal detective but has been pushed into the depths of discovery in the attempt to track down his nephew, Ryan Flynn, also known as Ryan Roth.
Roth had convinced his grandmother, Flynn’s mother, to give him around £18,000 sterling from her personal savings between 1999 and 2002.
He claimed that the money would be invested in humanitarian business ventures, and that it would be returned, but, as Flynn’s mother confided to him in 2013, she never saw a single penny of the money ever again.
Flynn decided not to take this lying down, and, in the process of attempting to locate his nephew and recover the money he had taken, he moved a rock and uncovered an ants’ nest of lies, scams and possibly fraudulent money-making schemes potentially worth millions.
Discovery+ has now taken Flynn across the world for the purpose of making a documentary on the subject of Ryan Roth, and potentially tracking him down.
The Faking Dead is a series into various scam artists around the world who may or may not have embezzled large amounts of money and faked their own deaths.
The documentary begins with pictures and video footage of Roth himself, from his childhood through to the present day.
Flynn explained that Roth’s father was a traveller and was absent from much of his childhood, leaving his mother, Flynn’s sister, to raise him alone.
The documentary flicks to a video of Roth explaining his own childhood in his own terms. He speaks in a mock-Australian accent in the video despite being born and brought up in Southampton, and speaks of his “absent father, alcoholic grandfather, and unsupportive mother”.
Flynn quickly counters this, saying his sister “worked hard” and that Roth “never went without”.
The documentary then follows a path of footage and evidence of Roth describing his life in dramatic detail, including in a chapter of a book titled “Take responsibility”, and Flynn giving an opposing timeline of events.
In one such instance, Roth claims to have worked in “logistics and distribution”. Flynn clarifies that this was a paper round, which he outsourced to other children.
It also touches on the issue of university degrees Roth had fabricated, and the various promises made to his grandmother to pay back the money he had borrowed, which become increasingly short and prickly with time.
The bulk of the documentary is a string of characters from across the globe who claim to have been scammed by Roth.
There is Karen Beck from the United States, an ex-girlfriend of Roth’s. The pair met in a strip club in Las Vegas, where Roth claimed to her that he “owns islands”. He showed interest in Beck’s band and became its manager.
She said she wanted no romantic involvement with him until she walked in on a staged suicide attempt and was manipulated into a relationship.
He started a business and claimed to have been accepted into actors’ and writers’ guilds and seemed to be going from strength to strength until Beck received a letter from the United States’ Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Department of Homeland Security.
The letters explained that it is “illegal to harbour or hire an illegal immigrant”.
From there, she broke up with him, and he continued on his way.
He next landed in Japan, managing an anonymous artist who left anti-nuclear stickers around Tokyo and hoovering up Japanese government grants. He sold a man a painting for $10,000 claiming it was “wanted by Madonna”, and then for years never gave the man the painting.
Meanwhile, he began an “ethical coffee” company named Malala coffee, raising $300,000 in investments. He told investors he had “spoken at the UN”, but the company never materialised.
At the same time, he had moved into an apartment with his Japanese girlfriend at the time. Flynn explained that he chose to become romantically involved with people to “avoid paying rent”, but on this occasion took it to the next level.
He ordered his girlfriend to leave her own apartment, claiming he “needed space” due to mental health issues.
While she was absent, he packed all her things into bin bags, turfed her cat, named Kabu, out onto the streets, posted on Facebook that he had got engaged, and disappeared to Bali, claiming Malala coffee had not succeeded “because of Brexit”.
In Bali, he started a new “ethical coffee company” named Kabu, after the cat.
The concept was described by observers as “catnip for investors” as it combined a social and environmental cause with real profit, while he claimed in his email signature that it was to “lift a million people out of poverty”.
He convinced his girlfriend in Indonesia to invest $90,000 of her own money into Kabu and is believed in some quarters to have raised over $4 million, before becoming “quiet and deflated”.
He then left a suicide note on a cliff in Bali alongside his passport and has not been seen since.
However, no body was ever recovered, and the cliff edge is too far from the sea for his body to have made it to the water. In addition, evidence exists of a flight ticket in his name with a different passport number out of Bali the following day.
Rumours suggest he had to take drastic measures as the Indonesian mafia was on his tail, and while his whereabouts are unknown, Flynn believes he is currently in Japan.
“I am in contact with some Facebook groups trying to track him down. I know I will find him, and he knows I will do my utmost to do so,” he said.
Flynn’s mother and his sister have since passed away, and he has vowed to bring his nephew to justice in their memory.