‘The Ghost In The Machine’: Issa Rae To Produce Film On The Astonishing True Story Of Tanya Smith For Netflix

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Netflix has been granted the rights to Tanya Smith’s forthcoming memoir, The Ghost in the Machine, and Issa Rae will be adapting the unbelievable true story into a feature film for the streaming giant. 

The memoir tells the story of Smith, a middle-class Black woman from Minneapolis, and how she would “become one of the single biggest threats to the entire United States banking system,” according to the FBI. The film will show how she was able to generate a complex wire fraud scheme that outsmarted the FBI and prosecutors, who continuously underestimated her brilliance.  It will also detail Smith’s capture and downfall, where she served 13 years of a 24-year sentence. At the time, this was the longest sentence ever given to a white-collar criminal.

Smith’s book, set to be published in 2021, will recount her tremendous rise and fall and how she was able to accept her past and reconstruct her life.

David Heyman, widely known for producing the Harry Potter installments, will also serve as a producer for the film alongside Rae. 

Rae has been producing and starring in quite a few successful films lately, including the musical documentary Dark City Beneath The Beat, the romantic drama The Photograph, and the Netflix rom-com The Lovebirds. 

Deadline first reported the news.