Reported by Margot Patrick 

(Summary featured below. To read full report, go to: https://www.wsj.com/finance/scam-billionaire-astor-bf8ce715?mod=WTRN_pos1)

In 2021, Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego, known for his ownership of TV Azteca and Grupo Elektra, sought to expand his bitcoin portfolio. To fund the move, he arranged $400 million in loans backed by over $1 billion in his own company stock. Three of the lenders were established financial institutions. The fourth appeared to be similarly credible: Astor Capital Fund, represented by Gregory Mitchell and linked, at least on paper, to the storied Astor family. After a video call with a man calling himself Thomas Astor Mellon aboard a yacht, Salinas Pliego signed loan documents bearing a lion-sealed emblem and handed over hundreds of millions in stock. But by the time suspicions emerged and the dust settled, the billionaire discovered he’d been taken in by a well-orchestrated ruse.

The men behind Astor Capital Fund were not who they claimed to be. Mitchell was in fact Val Sklarov, a Ukrainian-born American with a long criminal record including an $18 million Medicare fraud conviction. “Thomas Astor Mellon” turned out to be Alexey Skachkov, a Georgia man also with a criminal background. Together, the two had impersonated financial royalty, referencing now-defunct institutions and defunct dynasties to give their operation an air of legitimacy. Salinas Pliego wasn’t their only victim—Sklarov and his associates allegedly pulled in nearly $750 million worth of stock from similarly duped borrowers across the U.S., U.K., and Asia. These victims were often high-net-worth individuals looking to access liquidity without giving up ownership—perfect targets for Sklarov’s brand of high-risk, unregulated lending.

What makes the alleged scheme particularly striking is how it blurred the lines between fraud and finance. Sklarov structured his loan agreements to give himself maximum control, embedding clauses that allowed him to move, sell, or lend out collateral with little warning. He registered multiple shell companies under names like Cornelius Vanderbilt Capital Management and Bentley Rothschild, reinforcing the illusion of heritage wealth. His operations included websites, branded stationery, even branded coffee cups—yet none of the entities involved were licensed financial institutions. U.S. regulators have long warned about such unregulated stock-backed lending outfits, which fall outside normal investor protections and oversight.

Despite early signs of trouble—unusual trading activity, vague responses from the lender, and failure to verify stock positions—Salinas Pliego’s team did not take swift legal action. When they finally did, the trail led across multiple jurisdictions and into a tangle of shell companies and offshore custodians. In London, Salinas Pliego succeeded in freezing $400 million, while forensic investigators traced the flow of Elektra stock through brokers in the Bahamas and Monaco to entities controlled by Sklarov. In court filings, Sklarov insisted everything was aboveboard and denied misleading anyone. He admitted receiving over $9 million personally from the Elektra stock sales and claimed hundreds of millions flowed through his New York lawyer’s accounts—transactions now under scrutiny.

Behind the elaborate deception lies the story of a man who spent decades reinventing himself. After serving time for fraud, Sklarov dabbled in real estate, drove luxury cars, and later changed his name to Mark Simon Bentley in an attempt to “sound less Russian.” His colorful history includes placing a job ad in Crain’s Detroit Business claiming he’d turned $1 million into $60 million, only to be ruined by divorce. Later, he resurfaced in Georgia, remarried, and began targeting wealthy borrowers once again—this time with even more sophisticated branding. His version of securities-based lending may have mimicked the format used by global banks, but without legal protections, oversight, or the intention—many allege—to ever return the assets. As the legal proceedings continue, one thing is clear: not even billionaires are safe from old names and new cons.