A millionaire insurance broker from Hong Kong lied about his fortune to get on the Forbes list of the richest people. After his persistent attempts to get the publication to write about him, Forbes journalists conducted a detailed investigation and published the results.
Calvin Lo tried to convince the public and the reputable press of his wealth through deception, offering magazines and newspapers to publish about himself as a billionaire. In May, The Independent ran a story about the “Hong Kong billionaire”, revealing that he was thinking of buying a Formula 1 racing team. CNBC wrote that Lo was avoiding investments in cryptocurrencies. Several dozen more texts can be found, but all of them, according to Forbes’ findings, are based on inaccurate information. Lo lobbied the press publications only to appear on the annual list of the world’s richest people.
In addition, Lo claimed to own “a garage of supercars and a collection of high-end champagne, the value of one batch of which is 230 million dollars (about 21 billion rubles).” However, Christie’s Wine & Spirits auction director Tim Triptree told reporters that the maximum possible ceiling for the value of a batch of expensive champagne is barely above a hundred million dollars (about $9 billion). And his photo next to a super-expensive Pagani Huayra Tempesta car turned out to be a photo editor-processed shot taken in 2017 at a Sotheby’s auction. Photographer Robin Adams told reporters that the photo was used without his knowledge.
Despite a letter from Lo’s lawyers, where their client categorically rejects “all insinuations of dishonesty and lies,” a year-long investigation by journalists, during which they analyzed hundreds of documents and talked to at least four dozen people from different countries, proved otherwise. As it turned out, the fortune of “billionaire” Lo does not exceed 200 million dollars, and that’s only if you include the money of his parents.
It turned out that the lie was all the statements about the connection with Formula 1, as well as, for example, that Lo owns a luxury hotel Mandarin Oriental Taipei in the capital of Taiwan. He lied about his Harvard Business School degree and the amount of real estate he owned.
“He is hardly the first person to lie to Forbes about the size of his fortune. However, Lo stands out among others for the scale of deceit he was willing to commit for the sake of a ranking” – Forbes investigation
