Recorded trysts in hotel rooms, lies, extortion and deceit, multi-million euro payoffs, and wealthy women seduced by a glib ex-investment banker--all these could very well be elements of a formulaic Rated-PG movie. Except that this is a current news story, not a soon-to-be shown film.
The main character in this sensational story is Helg Sgarbi, a 44-year old former Credit Suisse M&A investment banker, who just gave detractors of investment banking another reason for vilifying the profession (shame on you, Sgarbi). Like most financial scams gone sour, greed did him in.
According to this report:
His favourite method of extorting cash from his victims was to announce that he had run over a child in either Italy or America and was being blackmailed by the Mafia as a result.
Amazingly, for such an almost laughable, non-sequitur tale, the Swiss gigolo was able to persuade BMW heiress Susanne Klatten and three other wealthy women to give him almost 10 million euros ($12.64 million) since he started this modus operandi in 2001. But I guess Sgarbi succeeded even with such a flimsy tale, not because these women were stupid, but because women tend to think with their heart. Besides, the clarity of one's thinking gets clouded with age. One of the victims was 64 years old. The oldest victim was 83 years old. Only Ms. Klatten was in her forties.
His undoing started when he got greedy with her. After getting €7 million from Ms. Klatten late in 2007 using his favorite method, Sgarbi reportedly wanted more, according to the Telegraph.co.uk:
Sgarbi then told the 46-year-old to leave her husband and put into a trust fund €290 million to fund their new life together.
Klatten then ended the relationship.
But then Sgarbi turned nasty, according to prosecutors, threatening to send compromising video footage of the two together to the press and to her husband, among others.
This time he allegedly demanded €49 million, which he subsequently reduced to €14 million, and set a deadline of January 15 last year. But she had long since informed the police, and Sgarbi was arrested.
This story will end where it should--with Sgarbi behind bars. He has just been sentenced by a Munich court to six years in jail.
The more I think about this Swiss con man's story the more Oscar Wilde's aphorism ring true: "Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life." Okay, back to the salt mines, guys.
(Photo credit: Google Images)
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