Bad Week for Billionaires as Some of World's Richest Tangle With the Law

Corruption is Everywhere

Certainly Among the World's Richest People

Jonathon Gatehouse · CBC News 

Premchai Karnasuta arrives at court to hear the verdict against him and three other suspects at Thong Pha Phum Provincial Court in Kanchanaburi province on Tuesday in a case involving poaching at a wildlife sanctuary. The case has fuelled outrage in a country fed up with impunity and corruption. (Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP/Getty Images)

It's rarely a bad time to be a billionaire.

In 2018, the world's richest people saw their collective fortunes grow by 12 per cent, or $2.5 billion US a day.

That's part of a long-term trend that has seen the planet's über-wealthy — the top one per cent — take home the equivalent of 27 cents of every dollar of global income growth over the past four decades, while the Earth's poorest 50 per cent got a 12-cent share.

In even starker terms, in 2016 the top 61 billionaires  had as much wealth as half of the world's population, some 3.8 billion people. And as the concentration of money rose in 2017, the number fell to 43, and then last year to just the top 26.

Yet all that wealth and power doesn't necessarily put them beyond the reach of the law.

Nirav Modi, an Indian diamond merchant worth $1.8 billion US, is currently sitting in a British jail cell after his arrest yesterday on charges of bank fraud regarding a $2 billion loan with Punjab state's National Bank.

Luxury jeweler Nirav Modi, left, and actress Naomi Watts attend a dinner to celebrate the opening of the first Nirav Modi boutique in the U.S. on Sept. 8, 2015, in New York. (Diane Bondareff/Associated Press)

The 48-year-old had fled India last June as police probed allegedly fraudulent letters of guarantee, but was spotted out and about in London's toney neighbourhoods by a newspaper reporter, then turned in by a sharp-eyed bank clerk.

Authorities in India have seized a number of properties and 11 luxury vehicles belonging to Modi, including a Porsche and a Rolls Royce, and are in the process of auctioning off a collection of 173 paintings.

He had offered to post a guarantee of $880,000 Cdn pending his extradition hearing, but the British court rejected his request for bail, with the judge noting dryly that she believed he "may have the means of escape."

Just across the Channel in France, two foreign billionaires are now facing prosecution.

Suleyman Kerimov, ranked as the world's 257th richest person with a fortune of $6.4 billion, has been indicted for tax fraud over the "suspicious" purchase of five lavish villas in the south of France.

Billionaire Suleyman Kerimov, a powerful Russian oil and metals magnate, watches a soccer match at Al Nasr Stadium in Dubai on Jan. 16, 2012. (Sergei Rasulov/AFP/Getty Images)

He had previously been on trial for money laundering in connection with the purchases, but the charges were dropped last summer. (Kerimov is also among the close to two dozen oligarchs facing U.S. sanctions over Russia's presumed interference in the 2016 presidential election.)

Now he is free on a 20-million euro ($30.26 million Cdn) bail.

The reopening of his case comes just a day after French authorities disclosed that they have arrested Belhassen Trabelsi, a Tunisian billionaire who fled Canada in 2016 to escape deportation to his homeland over accusations of corruption.

Belhassen Trabelsi sits outside the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board offices in Montreal on May 7, 2013. The elusive Tunisian billionaire disappeared from Canada as he was set to be deported to his homeland in 2016, but has resurfaced and is under arrest in France. (Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press)

The 56-year-old, who is the brother-in-law of former Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, amassed a vast fortune, including hotels, banks, media companies and a major construction firm over his relative's 23 years of rule.

His wife and four children were granted asylum in Canada, and are believed to be living in Montreal.

Meanwhile, a Thai billionaire has been sentenced to 16 months in jail on poaching charges. Premchai Karnasuta, who owns one of the country's main construction firms, was arrested by rangers in a national park in February 2018, and found to be in possession of the carcasses of several protected animals including a Kalij pheasant, a barking deer and an endangered black leopard.

Thai billionaire construction tycoon Premchai Karnasuta leaves The Thong Pha Phum Provincial Court in Kanchanaburi, Thailand, on Tuesday after being sentenced to 16 months in prison for possessing the carcass of an endangered Kajij pheasant and other rare animals. (Associated Press)

His driver and his cook, who were also arrested in the jungle, received lesser sentences.

Premchai is currently free on $17,000 Cdn bail pending an appeal.

And in the United States, Robert Kraft, the owner of the Superbowl champion New England Patriots, today rejected a plea deal that would have seen charges of receiving paid sexual acts in a Florida massage parlour dropped in exchange for a small fine and an admission of guilt.

Robert Kraft, CEO of the New England Patriots, attends the Super Bowl LIII Pregame at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Feb. 3 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

The 77-year-old Kraft is the world's 244th richest person, according to Forbes magazine, with an estimated net worth of $6.6 billion US.

It's not clear if Florida prosecutors have offered the same deal to John Childs, another Boston billionaire and major Republican donor, caught up in a related prostitution sting.

Forbes' latest billionaire ranking, released earlier this month,  lists 2,153 people with a net worth of at least $1 billion US.