Aahana Swrup
Originally titled ‘Les Lionnes,’ the French crime comedy series ‘Cash Queens’ charts a story about a series of heists committed by an unexpected bunch. Rosalina, a bank worker, is a single mother struggling to make ends meet ever since the imprisonment of her husband. Her other friends, fellow single mother Sofia, best friend Kim, and cousin Alex, are in similar boats, working odd jobs to try to cover their bills. As a result, when Rosa comes up with the outlandish idea to pull a robbery at the bank, her friends and Chloe, the newest addition in their circle, end up throwing their hats in the ring with her.
Together, the five women come up with the plan to don disguises, ski glasses, and fake beards that make them look like men. Therefore, once the police begin looking into the thefts, the real criminals are able to pass through under the radar relatively easily. Nonetheless, as the magnitude of their hit increases, so do the associated stakes. The series, created by Carine Prévôt and Olivier Rosemberg, presents a unique social commentary through its narrative, which, interestingly enough, finds fascinating real-life roots.
Cash Queens is Inspired by the Real-Life Robberies of Gang des Amazones
Although the central narrative in ‘Cash Queens’ remains populated with many fictitious elements, the foundation of the series is rooted in a real-life criminal story. Rosa and her gang of amateur robbers aren’t direct biographical depictions of real-life criminals. Instead, they find tangible inspiration in a string of robberies that took place in the late 1980s by a group known as Gang des Amazones. The robberies, seven in total, were carried out between 1989 and 1990 in the Vaucluse department in southeast France.
The criminals behind the crime, Hélène, Laurence, Carole, Fatija, and Malika, robbed multiple banks, disguised as men, and divided the loot among themselves. Although they were all facing financial issues, they reportedly began embarking on these illegal ventures after one of them, a single mother with three children, ran into prominent financial troubles. Eventually, the Gang des Amazones was captured by the authorities in 1991, during their eighth and final robbery. Furthermore, they served prison sentences between six and twelve months as part of a preventive prison.
Years later, in September 1996, they entered court trials, during which four of the accused were released, and one went on to serve one more year. Their story garnered much cultural attention, resulting in a number of fictional adaptations. In 1994, the story was adapted as a French film by Jean-Paul Salomé as the film ‘Les Braqueuses,’ or ‘The Robbers.’ Likewise, in 2025, Mélissa Drigeard adapted the story for the big screen as ‘Le Gang des Amazones’ (‘Unsubmissives’). With ‘Cash Queens,’ Carine Prévôt and Olivier Rosemberg take inspiration from the same historical crime, using it as a foundation for their series. However, since the project maintains an intentional distance from the biographical, the show has no qualms about leaning heavily into the realms of fictionalization and creative liberties.
The Criminals and Their Crime in Cash Queens are Fictionally Enhanced
Despite the real-life origins behind the central narrative in ‘Cash Queens,’ the show unravels in various ways that diverge from reality. Off-the-bat, the criminals helming the narrative, Rosa, Kim, Sofia, Alex, and Chloe, have no direct resemblance to the real members of Gang des Amazones. Outside of their involvement in bank robberies and the circumstances surrounding it, the two groups, real and fictional, share no other similarities. From Rosa’s job at the bank, which becomes her and her friends’ first target, to Chloe’s marriage with the town mayor, all of these details are fictitious.
The characters and their storylines are largely works of fiction penned by screenwriters Olivier Rosemberg and Carine Prévôt in service of the series. Additionally, the show greatly dramatizes the gradual magnitude of the robberies. In the show, Rosa and her friends pull off heists that steal millions in cash. Moreover, as the plot progresses, they find themselves entangled with the local gang, which adds a new layer of danger to their misadventures. In real life, the scale of Gang des Amazones’ operations never reached such heights. Some reports suggest their loot only ever amounted to 330,000 francs in total.
Similarly, there are no records of the group’s involvement with other violent gangs in the city. For the most part, the show only uses the Gang des Amazones as central inspiration for its premise. This means the details of the crimes that Rosa and the others undertake remain largely disconnected from the reality of their off-screen counterparts. Additionally, the contemporary setting of the series, compared to the real crime’s 1980s setting, forms another distinction between the two. As such, the series becomes a blend of fact and fiction, analyzing the perspective of female criminals through a comedic and socially prevalent lens. Ultimately, though largely fictitious, ‘Cash Queens’ retains a sense of realism through its authentic origins in reality.
Read More: Is Relationship Goals Based on a True Story?
