A newly unsealed U.S. indictment alleges that Vladimir Sklarov, a man prosecutors say used multiple aliases, duped Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego into a stock-backed loan deal by invoking the prestige of the famed Astor family. Prosecutors said Sklarov operated under the name of a supposed lending company, Astor Asset Group, and presented himself as connected to the Astors and financially backed by them.
According to prosecutors, the storied New York family, which includes John Jacob Astor, was part of the brand identity Sklarov allegedly used to persuade Salinas. Prosecutors said that even though the indictment did not name the victim, court records in England tied the case to Salinas, and Salinas later confirmed in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that he had been ripped off by Astor Asset Group.
The indictment said Sklarov also went by other names, including Gregory Mitchell and Mark Simon Bentley. Federal prosecutors said Sklarov was arrested in Chicago on Saturday on the New York federal grand jury indictment, and that a detention hearing is scheduled for Friday in federal court there. A public defender representing Sklarov in Chicago did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment Tuesday.
In the prosecutors’ account, Salinas had been seeking a $100 million loan in 2021 and planned to secure it with shares of a company he owned. Prosecutors said Sklarov, using the name Gregory Mitchell and claiming to be a “managing director” of Astor, and other unnamed co-conspirators convinced Salinas that Astor was willing and able to provide the loan.
Prosecutors said Sklarov and the co-conspirators told Salinas that Astor was “originally established from the wealth of John Jacob Astor,” and that it had high-profile clients including universities and investment funds. They said the parties signed a deal around July 2021 under which Sklarov agreed to lend Salinas at least $115 million, with prosecutors saying the money was supposed to come from the Astor family.
The indictment said Salinas secured the loan with company shares worth at least $450 million that were supposed to be held but not sold. Prosecutors allege Sklarov instead sold the shares, used some of the proceeds to fund the loan to Salinas, and kept the remaining hundreds of millions of dollars for himself and other conspirators.
Prosecutors said it was not until July 2024 that Salinas learned the shares had been liquidated. A day later, prosecutors said, Salinas received a letter from Astor falsely claiming he had defaulted on the loan, and prosecutors said a month earlier Astor had wrongly informed him that it had the right to sell the shares.
In his statement, Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Sklarov represented his company as affiliated with and financially backed by the famed New York Astor family to burnish his brand. Clayton said, “That was a complete lie. Sklarov used false prestige to gain control of hundreds of millions of dollars in stock and then liquidated those shares for his own benefit.”
The prosecutors’ filing also placed Sklarov’s hometown as Athens, Greece. The Wall Street Journal reported that Sklarov is a Ukrainian-born American and had been convicted of fraud in the past.