Farouk "Frank" Agrama (Arabic: فرنك عجرمة; January 1, 1930 – April 25, 2023)[1] was an Egyptian-born American film director and producer, writer and businessman.
Despite Shaka Zulu's massive success worldwide, Agrama's skillful negotiations left SABC to actually lose money, while Harmony Gold kept most of the profit.
According to the Los Angeles Times, prosecutors of Milan, on November 21, 2006, charged Agrama, along with former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and ten others, in a trial over tax fraud, embezzlement and false accounting to Mediaset.
In fact, on October 26, 2012, Agrama was convicted after this lengthy trial, where Berlusconi, or his group, had allegedly bought USA film rights by him to the Mediaset media company at inflated prices.
[7] All charges against Agrama and five others were dropped, while Mediaset CEO Pier Silvio Berlusconi and President Fedele Confalonieri were sentenced to 14 months imprisonment.
[5][14] In October 2011, Paddy Chan Mei-yiu and Katherine Hsu May-chun, along with nine others (including Frank Agrama and Pier Silvio Berlusconi, son of Silvio Berlusconi), were indicted by Milan court and charged with buying rights for US television series and movies, then reselling them to broadcasting rights firm Mediatrade (a subsidiary of Mediaset) at inflated prices and laundering the money in a complex scheme.
Earlier in 2005, Swiss investigators froze 150 million francs (HK$1.29 billion) at a UBS branch in Lugano belonging to Harmony Gold, Wiltshire Trading and other companies.