$5.5 billion wiped out in a day: Mexican magnate conned by online scam

Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego has lost nearly a quarter of his fortune—an estimated $5.5 billion—in a sophisticated 'loan-to-own' scam orchestrated by con artists who posed as descendants of the illustrious Astor family.

"I feel like an absolute idiot," the 69-year-old owner of the Grupo Salinas conglomerate told The Wall Street Journal, which reported on the billionaire's losses.

The hook was set in 2021, when Salinas Pliego sought a $400 million loan to finance a Bitcoin investment, offering up his shares in the retail and banking empire Grupo Elektra as collateral. He was connected with a firm calling itself Astor Capital Fund—a name deliberately chosen to evoke the prestige of the Gilded-Age Astor family and its Waldorf Astoria legacy.

But the operation was a facade. The man claiming to be 'Thomas Astor Mellon' was in fact Alexey Skachkov, a Georgian resident with a criminal record. The mastermind, according to the WSJ, was Ukrainian-born American Vladimir Sklarov, who posed as 'Gregory Mitchell' and had a history of fraud, including an $18 million medicare scam in the 1990s.

The WSJ reported that Sklarov’s group immediately sold off Salinas Pliego’s $400 million in shares, triggering a whopping 71 per cent plunge in Grupo Elektra’s stock price in July 2024.

The crash erased $5.5 billion from Salinas Pliego's personal wealth and $4 billion from his company's market value. Warning signs, including unusual trading, were reportedly missed after the firm provided assurances. The funds were allegedly funneled into luxury real estate, including a $6.45 million New York penthouse and a $6 million French château.

According to the WSJ, Salinas Pliego was just one of many victims. Sklarov’s operation allegedly controlled $750 million in stock from borrowers globally, exploiting lax regulation in the $4.3 trillion securities-based lending market. Salinas Pliego's legal team has since managed to freeze $400 million in a London court and is tracing the funds.

Sklarov, now reportedly living in Greece on a yacht named 'Enchantment', denies any wrongdoing, claiming borrowers knew their stock could be lent to third parties.