When Enzo Zelocchi first teased Checkmate in trade interviews, he called it “a thriller about surveillance run amok.” What he didn’t say—couldn’t say, for legal reasons—was that the storyboards doubled as a confession. Every beat in the script mirrors allegations now spelled out in Case No. 2:24-cv-09601, a civil RICO action pending in the U.S. District Court for Los Angeles. Official documents of a federal investigation, plus hundreds of pages of exhibits, paint a plot that would make even a jaded showrunner blink.
At the center of the complaint sit four marquee names: Steven Spielberg, Margot Robbie, Todd Philips, and Enzo Zelocchi himself—all listed on the actual target list seized from the defendants.
From Blockchain Dreams to Murder-Cell Modems
Rewind to 2018. While Hollywood speculated about his next action vehicle, Zelocchi was quietly incubating A-Medicare, a blockchain-powered health-tech platform designed to slash premiums, speed reimbursements and more. To draft the white paper for its companion digital coin, he hired “visionary” coder Troy Woody Jr.
Only later did Zelocchi discover that Woody was a long-time operative for UGNAZI—the same hacktivist nest that produced Mir Islam. Both men were already incarcerated for murder inside Metro Manila District Jail in the Philippines. With contraband laptops and cell phones, the duo tunneled into A-Medicare’s servers, lifted wallet addresses, changed passwords, road-mapped internal comms, and funneled everything to alleged ringleader Adam Iza (a/k/a Ahmed Faiq). Iza—a self-described ISIS sympathizer from Iraq who has since pled guilty—shared the information with girlfriend Iris Au (guilty plea) and leveraged it to assemble a Hollywood hit list of victims.
Badges, Budgets, and a Black-Ops Task Force
A global scheme is useless without boots on local asphalt. According to court exhibits, Iza bought those boots inside the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department:
- Eric Chase Saavedra – detective, guilty plea
- Richard Dudgeon – former deputy
- Dean Bryan Rawlings – current deputy
- Christopher & Michael Quintero – deputy brother + civilian sibling
- “John Does 1-n” – additional LASD staff still under seal
Working with private investigator Kenneth Childs and his firm Paramount Investigative Services (allegedly he spied on victims prior the criminal attacks with direct knowledge of the criminal activities), the deputies allegedly:
- Deployed StingRay cell-site simulators
- Pulled tower-dump dragnets and DMV data
- Filed fraudulent affidavits to trick judges into signing surveillance warrants
Result: real-time pings on Spielberg in Pacific Palisades, Robbie on a studio backlot, Philips in post-production, and Enzo Zelocchi everywhere from set to the gym.
When Keyboards Failed, Shotguns Spoke
In November 2021, there was an armed kidnapping-robbery attempt at an Arco gas station on Zelocchi. On March 30, 2022, three gunmen stormed Zelocchi’s front door; they retreated only after he returned fire (it’s reported that Kenneth Childs was waiting outside while the attack was taking place).
The violence gave way to reputation warfare:
- Disney Instagram hack (summer 2022) posted slurs under @DavidDo to smear Zelocchi’s hired freelancer.
- TMZ pay-offs produced “slanderous” headlines based on a bogus lawsuit.
- Wikipedia purge erased Zelocchi’s page overnight (Adam Iza paid off four editors).
- Las Vegas YouTuber (named defendant) uploaded three defamatory and slanderous videos to continue the criminal extortion.
- IMDb infiltration (in 2024): Woody, inside a Philippine cell, used falsified credentials to delete film credits and plant sabotage trivia.
Still empty-handed, the network unleashed two unethical attorneys who filed three meritless lawsuits—all of which were dismissed, but were calculated to bleed time, money, morale and keep running an extortion manipulating the court system.
The RICO Reversal
Instead of settling, Zelocchi counter-filed—invoking RICO § 1962, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (§ 1030), and California Penal Code § 502, plus defamation, battery, and conspiracy. He dropped chat logs, GPS trails, decrypted jail calls, and corrupted warrant paperwork on the judge’s desk. Saavedra flipped; Philippine forensics tied Woody and Islam to real-time criminal operations; Iza’s guilty plea connected the ISIS-UGNAZI dots.
Why Cinephiles—and Citizens—Should Care
Checkmate is now in development, but the warning shot has already echoed through law-enforcement audit rooms on two continents. The case spotlights how quickly state surveillance tools can be privatized when a few deputies go rogue ending up working for an ISIS terrorist from Iraq—and how easily an online smear factory can rewrite a career overnight.
By refusing to hand over digital assets’ keys, by refusing to cave to TMZ, by refusing to let three bogus lawsuits drain him dry, Enzo Zelocchi turned his life into evidence. In doing so, he shielded Spielberg, Robbie, Philips, and whoever else might have appeared in Iza’s next Telegram rant.
So when the film finally arrives, remember: the dolly shots, car chases, and encrypted phone graphics are simply the safer version. The raw footage—the hacked drives, the prison Wi-Fi logs, the forged warrants—sits in federal boxes marked “Exhibit” down on Spring Street. And that’s the reel Hollywood could never afford to shoot.
