After the shenanigans of Tinder Swindler and Inventing Anna, Netflix gave us an even more baffling take on con artists and charlatans with Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives. This four-part series follows the story of raw vegan restaurateur Sarma Melngailis, former owner of the New York City vegan restaurant Pure Food and Wine, who served time in jail for her financial crimes. But that is not what makes this story bizarre.
With promises of immortality, endless riches, and tales of reincarnated soulmates thrown into the spin, this series touches upon cult acceptance and people who are susceptible to it. Especially in the new age spiritual sphere, which tends to be a magnet for people with delusions of grandeur. When people go through trauma, they can become more prone to dissociating from reality. Promises of ascending from grim actuality, awakening from pain to ultimate freedom of the mind and soul can be far too powerful to walk away from for many.
In a way, one can write Bad Vegan off to one person’s foolishness, which is perhaps why the show feels tame for most true crime aficionados. However, many suspect that a Wharton alum who ran a multi-million dollar business was in no way foolish enough to fall for such a scam and was in on it all along. Either way, Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives makes for good entertainment and also makes us wonder about people’s gullibility – provided we suspend our disbelief.
Bad Vegan: The Story We Are Told
In 2012, Sarma married Anthony Strangis, who at first gave her vague information about being a secret agent and then eventually promised her (and her dog Leon) immortality and untold riches. So, beyond any logical explanation, Sarma gave him money whenever he asked for it and went wherever he told her to. This eventually bled her restaurant dry, and when employees went on strike demanding their salaries, Sarma fled with Strangis, even though she maintains she did not know she was on the run from the long hands of the law.
Sarma pleaded guilty in May 2017 to defrauding her investors and employees, stealing more than $2,000,000 from her business, and criminal tax fraud charges. She received a jail sentence of four months, and Strangis served a little over a year in prison.
Noted for her innovative culinary venture and celebrity clientele, Sarma, was no stranger to the spotlight herself. From magazine features to TV coverage, her professional success brought her plenty of fame. Still it was not enough. According to the Netflix docuseries, Sarma always saw herself as different. That may sound like the story of every rebel kid who wants to leave a legacy of being an iconoclast. But with Sarma, it was the lure of something more than just the mundane that led to her eventual downfall.
The tales of the supernatural do not explain why Sarma would conspire with Strangis to defraud her investors. When Strangis pretended to be Michael Caledonia, someone she claimed she wanted to sell her business to recover her losses, she went along with the lie. When her employees found out he was indeed someone called Anthony Strangis and not Shane Fox, as he had stated earlier, Sarma also chose to ignore it. These are questions left unanswered in the show so that the audience can connect the dots and gain a high of solving a mystery all on their own. After all, that is part of the fun of watching or reading crime stories, true or otherwise.
Extreme Vulnerability & Cult Acceptance
If we can keep our scepticism aside for a second then we can believe that Sarma did not intentionally commit her crimes. That she was indeed under the spell of an emotionally manipulative conman who walked into her life at a bad time and took advantage of her. This brings us to the worrying notion that even an educated, smart person can fall for a scam such as this. What Sarma did perplexed people. But the truth remains that vulnerability and desperation can drive human beings to do strange things. She was already going through emotional turmoil in her personal life that, mixed with running a high-profile business, could have led her down a scary path.
There is no rationale behind such behaviour, just the same way there is no way to explain why some people are an easy target to be indoctrinated by cults. They are either looking to be accepted, saved, or absolved of their mortal obligations for being special.
For instance, over the course of four years, 66-year-old Ramesh Kumar Swain defrauded and married 27 women across 10 Indian states before getting caught in 2022. Among his victims were a Supreme Court lawyer, an officer in a paramilitary force, a senior executive from an insurance company, an officer of the Kerala Administrative Service, a Chartered Accountant, and even doctors. Much like Sarma, these were educated women with prominent careers. The fact that society puts unreasonable amounts of pressure on women to get married mixed with a yearning for companionship could very well be one explanation for why they did what they did.
At one point in the docuseries, Sarma confesses that Strangis’ promises to take care of her financially were a motivating factor behind rushing into marriage with him. Despite having doubts about his character, everyone around Sarma believed in the tall tales Strangis served up about being rich. He wore expensive watches, drove expensive cars, and carried around precious stones while being extremely cagey about what he did. Everyone fell for the superficial displays of his imaginary wealth. Of course, Sarma should have known better than to believe that he was a celestial being waiting to burst out of his “meat suit” and help her do the same. But then again, she would not be the first victim to fall prey to promises of greatness or enlightenment in lieu of obedience.