Meet Vladimir Sklarov, who allegedly stole $450 million from a Mexican billionaire using the Astor family name and spent it on luxury villas and a château

In one of the biggest frauds of recent times, a person called Vladimir Sklarov allegedly defauded a Mexican billionaire of $450 million using the name of one of America's most famous wealthy family.

The 63-year-old Sklarov allegedly used Astor family name and a sham financial company to gain control of shares worth about $450 million belonging to Salinas Pliego. The scheme revolved around a company called Astor Asset Group, which prosecutors say falsely claimed to be connected to and financially backed by the storied Astor family of New York.

Sklarov, who also used the names Gregory Mitchell and Mark Simon Bentley, was arrested in Chicago after a federal grand jury in New York indicted him on fraud charges. Prosecutors allege that he and his co-conspirators convinced Salinas to hand over hundreds of millions of dollars in company stock as collateral for a loan — and then secretly sold the shares.


The victim was not named in the indictment, but court records from litigation in England identify him as Salinas, the billionaire behind Mexican retail, television and banking businesses. Salinas himself confirmed the fraud in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “I feel like an absolute idiot. How could I fall for this?” Salinas told the newspaper.

The scam began with an unlikely promise

In 2021, Salinas was looking for a large loan that he could use while retaining ownership of his assets. According to the indictment, Sklarov — operating as Gregory Mitchell and presenting himself as a managing director of Astor — told Salinas that the company could provide financing backed by shares in one of his companies. The pitch was built around the Astor name.

The conspirators allegedly claimed that Astor had been established using the wealth of John Jacob Astor, the 19th-century businessman who became one of the richest people in America. That association gave the company an aura of old-money credibility. The deal reportedly called for Astor to lend Salinas at least $115 million, while Salinas pledged shares worth at least $450 million as collateral.

The shares were supposed to remain untouched. Instead, prosecutors allege, Sklarov and his associates sold them.

The fake Astor empire

The operation allegedly went far beyond simply borrowing a famous surname. According to court records and reporting by The Wall Street Journal, the supposed financial firm had a website, corporate branding, an office and people presenting themselves as members of wealthy American families.

One associate allegedly went by Thomas Astor Mellon, combining the surnames of two prominent American dynasties. The man behind that identity was reportedly Alexey Skachkov. The operation also allegedly used names such as Cornelius Vanderbilt Capital Management and Bentley Rothschild, invoking other famous American and European financial families. The strategy was straightforward: make the company look as though it belonged to an established financial dynasty, then use that credibility to persuade wealthy clients to entrust it with valuable assets.

What happened to the $450 million in shares?

The shares pledged by Salinas were worth at least $450 million, according to prosecutors. Rather than holding them as collateral, Sklarov allegedly liquidated them. Some of the proceeds were used to provide Salinas with the promised loan. Prosecutors say the remaining hundreds of millions of dollars were diverted for the benefit of Sklarov and his co-conspirators. Salinas did not discover that his shares had been sold until July 2024, according to the indictment. The following day, he received a letter from Astor claiming that he had defaulted on the loan. Prosecutors allege that the default claim was false.

The pledged shares were connected to Grupo Elektra, the Mexican retail and financial company controlled by Salinas. When the shares were liquidated, Grupo Elektra's stock suffered a dramatic collapse, falling about 71% in July 2024. The plunge reportedly erased billions of dollars from the company's market value and sharply reduced Salinas's personal fortune.

The episode also raised questions about why warning signs were not detected earlier.

Salinas's advisers had reportedly noticed unusual activity surrounding the shares as early as 2021. His representatives even visited Astor's New York office, which appeared to be a legitimate financial operation. But when they later demanded evidence that the shares were still safely held in custody, the company allegedly resisted.

Astor reportedly described the request as improper interference and maintained that it had control over the assets. The relationship eventually deteriorated into a default dispute.

Where did the money go?

As Salinas began fighting to recover his assets, investigators and lawyers traced an increasingly complicated network of companies, bank accounts and properties.

Property records and court filings have pointed to luxury purchases allegedly connected to money from the scheme, including:

A $6.45 million penthouse in New York overlooking Central Park

A $2.67 million mansion in Virginia

A $6 million château in France registered to Sklarov's wife

Luxury villas in the Greek suburbs of Marousi and Ekali

Legal filings have also alleged that hundreds of millions of dollars moved through accounts associated with Sklarov's lawyer before being transferred to offshore entities.

Salinas's lawyers have been pursuing the money across several jurisdictions.

Sklarov's past frauds

The alleged fraud was not Sklarov's first encounter with the law. The Wall Street Journal reported that Sklarov is a Ukrainian-born American who had previously been convicted of fraud. In the 1990s, he was imprisoned in connection with an $18 million Medicare fraud scheme involving false billing for surgical dressings. After serving his sentence, prosecutors allege, he reinvented himself through new identities and companies.

The names Gregory Mitchell and Mark Simon Bentley were among the aliases he allegedly used later. The result was an elaborate financial persona that appeared very different from his earlier criminal history.

Salinas may not have been the only target

The alleged operation appears to have been broader than a single $450 million deal. Court filings and reporting have described a network that operated across the US, UK and Asia, targeting wealthy individuals through securities-backed lending arrangements. In Salinas's case, prosecutors allege that the collateral was worth roughly four times the amount of the promised loan.

Sklarov, meanwhile, has denied wrongdoing. He has argued that Astor operated in the high-risk world of finance and disputed the claim that the agreement prohibited transfers of the shares. The case now moves through the US and international legal systems, where prosecutors and Salinas's lawyers will attempt to unravel the network of aliases, shell companies, bank accounts and property purchases.