Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives.

The “spectacular grift” documentary is a subgenre of the (particularly Netflix) true crime genre that is threatening to overshadow its originator. In rapid succession we have had Inventing Anna (about the fake German heiress Anna Delvey, who took most of Manhattan’s elite for a ride), The Dropout (the story of the biotech entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes, who built the multi-billion dollar firm Theranos on the back of fraudulent claims, and The Tinder Swindler (about pretty much exactly what it said on the tin).And now we have Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud.Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives. Season 1 Download

Fugitives (Netflix), the story of how one woman was so gullible that she let a man she met online persuade her to drain $2m from her Manhattan raw-vegan restaurant, because he claimed he could make her beloved dog Leon immortal.That, at least, is – roughly – the marketing headline. Variations on it made the actual headlines too, during the weeks when restaurateur Sarma Melngailis went, again as the media had it, on the run with Anthony Strangis (who was then her husband), while owing large sums of money to various investors and her staff. However, it was – would you believe – a bit more complicated than that, as this unhurried but fascinating four-part documentary does a fine and careful job of explaining. The bulk of it comprises an extensive interview with Melngailis herself. Her account is supplemented by testimony from family members, staff, friends and investors (not that all those roles were mutually exclusive – she seems to have been generally loved and respected by those who knew her before Strangis appeared on the scene). They watched with increasing confusion and powerlessness as the catastrophe unfolded.Melngailis, an astute, hardworking businesswoman and former financier at Bear Stearns was riding high on the success of her restaurant and other outlets specialising in vegan raw food (I know – apparently not a thing they just made up for that episode of Sex and the City).