Janelle Monáe to portray financial criminal Tanya Smith in ‘Never Saw Me Coming’ film
Written by ABC Audio All Rights Reserved on February 20, 2025
Janelle Monáe will be portraying con artist Tanya Smith in a film adaptation of Smith’s memoir, Never Saw Me Coming: How I Outsmarted the FBI and the Entire Banking System — and Pocketed $40 Million, Variety reports. It will be produced via Janelle’s Wondaland Pictures.
The heist thriller will follow “Smith’s journey from teenage hacker to [a] financial system mastermind,” who was known for being “one of the single biggest threats to the entire United States banking system.” She was behind several heists and had collected millions of dollars, getting by law enforcement and even the FBI, who “refused to believe a Black woman could be the architect of such sophisticated crimes,” the press release says, per Variety. She built a $40 million empire before things went down hill, and she faced a harsh prison sentence.
Tanya now serves as advocate for prison reform, women’s rights, economic equality and more, and will also be an executive producer of Never Saw Me Coming.
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