It was an unseasonably warm December evening in the Russian capital and spirits were high inside Sixty, a restaurant atop a skyscraper overlooking the Moscow River where vintage Krug pops at $1,000 a bottle.
Employees of the GL network of companies were cheering as their boss, German Lillevyali, showered them with golden Oscar replicas, 10,000-euro debit cards to shop in Milan and, for his very best performer, a $70,000 car.
Six months on, there’s nothing left to celebrate.
“It’s like a bad movie”
Lillevyali, a serial entrepreneur who’s dabbled in everything from vodka to health care, has left Russia, the money-raising hub of his GL Financial Group, a Swiss- and U.K.-licensed asset manager with affiliates in Moscow, Zurich, Geneva, London, Cyprus and Belize.
The financier, who was managing at least $250 million of assets at the end of last year according to two former subordinates, seems to be in Cyprus. A Facebook message seeking to calm investors was posted under his name on April 20, purportedly from the island nation.
“I promise you the money is safe,” it said. “I will return it personally, there is nothing to worry about.”
That might have reassured European, U.S. and Asian clients trying to get their money back as GL workers quit, offices closed and phone lines went dead. Except Lillevyali says the Facebook post from Cyprus was fake, deepening the mystery of their missing millions. Disgruntled clients include an executive who works for billionaire Oleg Deripaska, top managers at Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG and San Francisco-based Levi Strauss & Co., and even a professional soccer goalie.
This story of GL Financial’s unraveling, which is being scrutinized by regulators in Britain and Switzerland, has been pieced together from interviews with eight clients and former employees. They requested anonymity either because they don’t want to jeopardize efforts to retrieve their savings or because they fear for their physical safety.
Calls and messages to the numbers listed for GL Financial and related companies weren’t returned or went to voicemail. When Bloomberg reached Lillevyali himself via WhatsApp on Wednesday and Thursday, he declined to identify his current location three times, saying he’s not ready to play “the anti-hero.”