In 2010, a group of scam artists pretended that they were making a film, appropriately titled A Landscape of Lies. They did this so that they could claim over £2.7 million in tax credits intended to boost the British film industry. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs began to suspect something was up when no apparent progress was being made on the project and the film company’s “office” was an empty room. The scammers tried to make the project look legitimate by actually making a movie for £84,000 and releasing it on DVD. (You can watch the trailer here.) The fake movie was convincing enough to trick one film festival into giving it an award (which it later had to take back.)

Related: The claimed DHS-based television show turns out also to have been a scam.