Christopher Nolan’s Brother Worked as a Hitman Under the Alias Oppenheimer — and It’s Not a Movie Script (10 Photos)

Christopher Nolan has an older brother Hollywood prefers not to talk about. Matthew Nolan isn't a director or a screenwriter; he’s a Chicago property developer. In the early 2000s, he found himself at the center of one of Central America's stranger criminal cases. Costa Rican prosecutors alleged that Matthew hired himself out as a hitman to a Florida millionaire, posing as a wealthy heir to a diamond dynasty under the alias Oppenheimer. He then spent years evading the FBI, attempted a jailbreak using a rope made of bedsheets, and ultimately was never convicted of murder. Here is the full story — from his first meeting with the victim to his quiet disappearance from the public eye.





Three Brothers: London, Evanston, and Divergent Paths

The Nolan brothers grew up between two worlds. Their father, Brendan James Nolan, worked as an advertising executive in London. Their mother, Christina Jensen, was an American flight attendant who later became a teacher. The family lived in London but spent long stretches visiting maternal relatives in Evanston, Illinois — a quiet university suburb of Chicago.



Evanston, Illinois: Where the Nolan brothers spent summers visiting their mother’s American family

Matthew was born in 1968, the eldest of the three. Christopher arrived in 1970, and Jonathan followed in 1976. Christopher and Jonathan attended the prestigious Haileybury School in Hertfordshire, and both went into filmmaking. Jonathan became a screenwriter and showrunner — creator of

Westworld

— while Christopher rose to become one of Hollywood’s most influential directors. Matthew chose a different path: settling in Chicago, working in real estate, and marrying an American woman named Erika in 1999.

At first glance, Matthew was living a quiet, successful life. But in the early 2000s, his trajectory took a dramatic turn after a fateful meeting with a Florida businessman.

A Florida Gem Dealer and Millions in Stolen Cash

Robert Breska was a millionaire gem dealer based in South Florida. In the 1980s, he served four years in prison for his involvement in a Milwaukee cocaine cartel, laundering drug money by inflating the value of precious stones. After his release, Breska returned to the jewelry business and built a network of trusted associates.





South Florida: The stomping ground of Robert Breska — a diamond trader with a criminal past who prosecutors allege hired Matthew Nolan

One of those associates was Robert Curtis Cohen, a 63-year-old American accountant managing a portion of Breska’s assets. Around 2004, Breska discovered that between $7 million and $12 million was missing from his accounts. He accused Cohen, who in turn pointed the finger at a Costa Rican partner, Mario Quintana, claiming Quintana had invested the funds in offshore schemes where they vanished. In 2004, Quintana was found dead of a gunshot wound — an apparent suicide, according to investigators. Realizing he was trapped, Cohen wrote a letter to his attorney stating that if anything happened to him, Breska was responsible.

With Quintana dead and the money gone, Breska set his sights squarely on Cohen. It was at this juncture that Matthew Nolan entered the picture.

Alias Oppenheimer: Baiting the Trap

According to Costa Rican prosecutors, the plan was straightforward: lure Cohen from the US to Costa Rica and beat the location of the missing millions out of him. To gain his trust, Breska introduced Cohen to Matthew Nolan, who assumed a false identity — Matthew McCall Oppenheimer, supposedly an heir to the legendary South African diamond dynasty that had controlled De Beers for decades.



Matthew Nolan adopted the alias Oppenheimer, implying ties to the South African diamond dynasty behind De Beers

The alias was carefully chosen. The Oppenheimer name commanded prestige and trust — the mark of a wealthy man in the gem trade who would have no reason to steal. In February 2005, Cohen met the fake "Oppenheimer" in the US. Breska persuaded him to fly to Costa Rica under the guise of joint negotiations to recover Quintana’s funds.

Cohen agreed. He flew into San José and checked into the InterContinental Hotel, taking a room right next to "Oppenheimer." On the morning of March 6, 2005, the two had breakfast together. It was the last time Cohen was seen alive.

March 6, 2005: What Happened in San José

According to court documents, security cameras captured Matthew Nolan and hotel employee Luis Alonso Douglas Mejía at a shopping center parking lot in San José that same day. Cohen was with them. Witnesses reported seeing Nolan and Mejía force Cohen into a vehicle.



Limón Province on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast: Where prosecutors say Cohen was held captive and interrogated before his death

Immediately afterward, Matthew fled Costa Rica. Over the next nine days, he bounced between Texas, Paris, New York, and Miami before returning. Prosecutors allege that during this time, Cohen was being held hostage at a house in the coastal province of Limón, where Mejía and accomplices interrogated him under torture to extract information about the missing money. Cohen died from massive internal bleeding.



The bridge over the Chirripó River in Matina: Where Robert Cohen’s tortured body was found on March 10, 2005

On March 10, 2005, Robert Cohen’s body was found abandoned on a banana plantation in Matina, beneath a bridge over the Chirripó River. His body bore signs of severe torture. Days later, Costa Rican police tracked down Mejía, who was driving a Toyota rented by Nolan — and had already racked up two traffic violations in it. Inside the vehicle, officers found mobile phone batteries and a roll of heavy-duty duct tape. Mejía was convicted and sentenced to 27 years in prison. Matthew Nolan, meanwhile, was already back home in Chicago.

Four Years on the Run: The FBI’s Hunt for Nolan

Back in Chicago, Matthew appeared to resume his normal life. But in 2006, Interpol issued a red notice for his arrest. The FBI joined the manhunt, assigning Special Agent Pablo Araya to lead the investigation. Araya spent months running surveillance on Nolan’s Chicago residence.

“I saw his wife, his kids, the nanny, and his mother-in-law,” Araya recalled. “But I never saw him.”



Matthew Nolan’s Interpol mugshot — one of the few public photographs of Christopher Nolan’s older brother

Nolan was actually hiding out in Florida. Agent Araya noted that the suspect was "very countersurveillance-conscious" and expertly covered his tracks using multiple aliases. This cat-and-mouse game went on for nearly two years.

In early 2009, Matthew and his wife, Erika, ran out of money and filed for bankruptcy. It was a fatal mistake: bankruptcy proceedings required a personal court appearance. Araya and his team were waiting outside the courtroom. Nolan was arrested on the spot. After his arrest, Matthew remarked to the agent, "You never would have caught me if it wasn't for the bankruptcy." According to Araya, he said it completely deadpan — just stating a fact.

A High-Rise Prison Break and the Trial That Never Happened

Matthew was remanded to the Metropolitan Correctional Center, a high-rise federal detention facility in downtown Chicago, awaiting extradition to Costa Rica. But he wasn't planning on staying put. During a search of his cell, guards uncovered an escape kit: a razor blade, a homemade harness, a metal clip designed to unlock handcuffs, and a 31-foot rope woven from bedsheets. His cell was on the 11th floor. The daring break was thwarted before he could put his plan into action.



The Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago: Where Matthew Nolan awaited extradition — and attempted a daring escape using a bedsheet rope

In April 2010, Nolan pleaded guilty to two federal charges: possession of contraband in prison and obstruction of justice. A judge sentenced him to 14 months in prison.

As for the primary allegations of murder and kidnapping, US Magistrate Judge Michael Mason denied extradition. He ruled that Costa Rica had failed to present sufficient evidence that Nolan was a "man who kills." The court approved extradition only on a charge of possessing false documents, but Costa Rican authorities deemed that charge minor and declined to pursue it. In 2010, Matthew Nolan walked free.

Post-Prison: Suing the Government and Fading Away

In 2012, Matthew Nolan filed a lawsuit against the US government, alleging he had suffered physical, psychological, and psychiatric harm while in federal custody. The outcome of the lawsuit was never publicly disclosed.

Robert Cohen’s daughter, Alisha, refuses to consider the case closed. "The investigation is moving in the right direction," she told reporters in 2024. According to

The Mirror

, Costa Rican authorities still consider Cohen’s murder an open investigation. Luis Mejía continues to serve his 27-year sentence, while Robert Breska, the alleged mastermind behind the scheme, has never faced charges.



Christopher Nolan at the 2023 premiere of

Oppenheimer

: His brother had used the same alias eight years before the movie came out

Neither Christopher Nolan nor Jonathan Nolan has ever publicly commented on their older brother’s dark past. Not a word in interviews, nor a post on social media. After his release, Matthew dropped completely out of sight. As of 2024, he lives quietly in Chicago with his wife and children.

Double Lives: Real Life Meets Cinema

There is one detail in this story that is impossible to ignore. Throughout his career, Christopher Nolan has directed movies obsessed with secret identities and assumed names:

Memento

, featuring a man with no reliable memory of who he is;

The Prestige

, about magicians swapping identities;

The Dark Knight

, full of masks and secret lives;

Inception

, about operatives invading other people’s dreams; and finally

Oppenheimer

— a film that shares the exact surname Christopher’s brother adopted as an alias eight years before its release.



Christopher Nolan’s films repeatedly explore secret identities and assumed names — whether coincidental or not, the director remains silent

No one is suggesting that Nolan the director drew direct creative inspiration from his brother’s criminal exploits. That would be far too simplistic. Yet the parallel remains striking: the man who directed

Oppenheimer

is the brother of a man who spent years living under that very name. One crafted fictional worlds; the other inhabited a real one — or tried to.

“You never would have caught me if it wasn't for the bankruptcy.” — Matthew Nolan to FBI Agent Pablo Araya following his arrest in February 2009

Matthew Nolan’s story remains unresolved — both legally and humanly. One man is dead. Another sits in a prison on another continent. A third lives quietly in Chicago, keeping his silence. And the fourth continues to make films about men with secrets to hide.