Boss of world’s largest cinema chain victim of catfish blackmail plot

Adam Aron wrote on X: ‘Rather than give in to blackmail, I personally engaged counsel and other professional advisors and reported the matter to law enforcement.’ Photograph: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

The boss of the world’s largest movie theatre chain sent sexually explicit messages and photos to a woman who then tried to blackmail him for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Adam Aron, the chief executive of AMC Entertainment, which also owns the Odeon chain in Europe, exchanged messages for weeks last spring with an individual he believed was a ballet dancer with whom he had previously been in a romantic relationship.