CHICAGO, Illinois: A man using the name of the famed Astor family, among other aliases, duped a Mexican billionaire out of around US$450 million in a bogus stock-backed loan scheme.

A newly unsealed U.S. indictment and other court records reveal that Vladimir Sklarov, 63, who also used the names Gregory Mitchell and Mark Simon Bentley, created a fake company called Astor Asset Group. He claimed it was a real and experienced loan company connected to the famous Astor family, prosecutors said. The Astor family included John Jacob Astor, who was one of the richest men in America in the 1800s.

The court papers do not name the victim, but records in the United Kingdom show it was Ricardo Salinas Pliego, a wealthy Mexican businessman. Salinas also said in an interview last year that the company had cheated him. He said he felt foolish for trusting them.

Sklarov was arrested in Chicago over the weekend based on charges filed in New York. A court hearing is planned for May 8. His lawyer did not respond to messages.

Prosecutors said Sklarov lied about being connected to the Astor family to make his company look trustworthy. He used this fake reputation to gain control of hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of shares and then sold them for his own profit.

In 2021, Salinas was seeking a $100 million loan and planned to use his company shares as collateral. Sklarov, posing as a senior executive at Astor, and others convinced him they could provide the loan. Another person also used a fake name.

They told Salinas that their company was founded on the wealth of John Jacob Astor and had important clients, including universities and investment funds.

In July 2021, Sklarov agreed to lend Salinas at least $115 million, saying the money came from the Astor family. Salinas gave shares valued at least $450 million as collateral, which were supposed to be kept safe and not sold.

But Sklarov sold the shares, used part of the money to fund the loan, and kept the rest for himself and his partners.

Salinas only found out in July 2024 that his shares had been sold. The next day, he received a letter falsely stating that he had failed to repay the loan. A month earlier, the company had wrongly claimed it had the right to sell his shares.

Authorities said Sklarov is from Athens, Greece. Reports say he was born in Ukraine and had previously been convicted of fraud.