Overview

• In 2021 Ricardo Salinas Pliego pledged $400 million of Grupo Elektra shares to what he believed was a legitimate Astor family fund to back a Bitcoin investment.
• Fraudsters Alexey Skachkov (alias Thomas Astor Mellon) and Vladimir Sklarov (alias Gregory Mitchell) secretly sold those shares in July 2024, triggering a 71% plunge in Elektra’s stock and wiping out $5.5 billion of Pliego’s wealth.
• Proceeds from the forced sale were laundered into luxury real estate across New York, Virginia, France and Greece, complicating efforts to recover assets.
• Following the London freeze order, Pliego’s lawyers are coordinating with U.S. and European authorities to unearth funds moved through offshore accounts and law firms.
• Sklarov, now based in Greece, denies wrongdoing and asserts that investors were informed their shares could be lent to third parties.