Billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego, one of Mexico’s most prominent media and retail tycoons, was duped out of roughly US $450 million in company stock in a loan scam, according to a newly unsealed U.S. indictment.
U.S. prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have charged Vladimir Sklarov, 63, with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Also known by aliases such as Mark Simon Bentley and Val Sklarov, the man was arrested May 2 in Chicago.
Authorities say Sklarov ran a sham lender called Astor Asset Group that pitched itself as a “legitimate and experienced provider of equity-backed loans” with ties to the famed Astor family of New York — whose patriarch, fur magnate John Jacob Astor, was widely regarded as the richest man in the United States upon his death in 1848.
In reality, prosecutors allege, Sklarov’s company was set up to seize valuable stock from borrowers through false promises and misleading representations.
Court records in related litigation in England identify the victim as Salinas, 70, the founder and chairman of Grupo Salinas, whose holdings include TV Azteca, Grupo Elektra and Banco Azteca.
Forbes has ranked him among Mexico’s richest businessmen, with a fortune built on media, retail and financial services. The magazine’s “real-time net worth” pegs Salinas at about US $3.7 billion this week, though other recent estimates place him between roughly US $4.9 billion and US $5.8 billion.
According to the indictment, Salinas sought a US $100 million loan in 2021 and was ultimately offered at least US $115 million by Astor Asset Group. Using the name “Gregory Mitchell” and claiming to be Astor’s managing director, Sklarov convinced Salinas that his group was backed by Astor family wealth and could safely provide the loan, prosecutors say.
Moreover, according to interviews cited by The Wall Street Journal, people who met Sklarov described him as affable and fluent in financial jargon, a smooth talker with easy charm. Authorities list his hometown as Athens, Greece. He was born in Ukraine, according to The Wall Street Journal.
To secure the financing, Salinas allegedly pledged company shares worth about US $450 million that were supposed to be held as collateral and not sold unless he defaulted on the loan.
Instead, Sklarov arranged for the shares to be sold shortly after receiving them, prosecutors say.
Then he used part of the proceeds to fund the loan while keeping the remaining hundreds of millions of dollars for himself and his co-conspirators, prosecutors allege. It was not until July 2024 that Salinas learned the stock had been liquidated, according to the indictment.
According to the The Wall Street Journal, Sklarov said in court affidavits he personally received US $9.1 million from the Elektra share sales; however, prosecutors say he and his associates kept hundreds of millions of dollars from the deal.
In an interview with the Journal, Salinas said, “I feel like an absolute idiot. How could I fall for this?”
Salinas confirmed he has taken legal action in London and New York to trace and freeze the proceeds of the share sales.
Born in Mexico City in 1955, Salinas studied accounting at the Tecnológico de Monterrey and later earned an MBA from Tulane University in New Orleans before joining his family’s Elektra retail business in the early 1980s and then expanding Grupo Salinas into a conglomerate.
He is also no stranger to legal trouble. Last year, Mexico’s Supreme Court upheld tax claims of more than US $2.6 billion against companies in his group.
Also last year, he posted a US $25 million bond to avoid arrest in New York in a dispute over a US $20 million debt tied to the 2015 sale of his former wireless carrier, Iusacell, to AT&T.
With reports from El Informador, Aristegui Noticias, AP and The Wall Street Journal
