Over the span of a decade, Hong Kong businessman and race-car driver Jacky Yeung invested in buildings, a travel agency and rare-ear✃th mines, to the tune of $20 million, according to court documen🐻ts. But the only dividend he got? A bruised ego.
Yeung was the target of an elaborate long con that saw him wined and dined from Dubai to the South of France. The scam involved fake government officials, gorgeous blonꦕdes and even a motorcade. It was perpetrated b𝕴y Valentyn Belan, a small-time Ukrainian swindler with big ambitions.
This past October, Belan, 39, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and was sentenced by a US District Court in New York City to nine years in prison. In a letter to Judge Greg﷽ory H. Wood๊s, prosecuting attorney Geoffrey S. Berman wrote that Belan’s “fraud was stunning and brazen in its scope.”
This saga began in Kherson, Ukraine, where Belan managed a so-called marriage agency — essentially a service designed to hook up foreign, often affluent men with poཧtential brides.
In 2008, a golden goose fell into Belan’s lap when, according to a defense sentencing memo, Yeung “arrived in Ukraine possibly looking for a bride but also quickly engaged Mr✱. Belan about potential investment opportunities.”
(Yeung’s🌱 attorney🦂 strongly denied his client was looking for a wife.)
Belan charmed the racer into investing in a travel agency. A year later, Yeung had also bought seven buildings and a sports field for som𝔍e $9 million.
None of the properties were actually purchased.
But Belan kept Yeung on the hook by wiring him around $50,000, which the Ukraini🔜an claimed was rental income, each month.
Next, Belan pressed Yeung into investing in a rare-earth mine, which would provide metals for electronic devices. Again, it was ♕only a figment of the scammer𝓀’s imagination.
And what an imagination it was. To convince Yeung of his credibility, Belan in 2010 organized a motorcade for the driver in Ukraine and introduced him to a government minister at her estate. She was, in fact, a woman Belan had hired to playᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ the role; the home was a hotel.
Belan also brought in a bogus fellow investor who presented documents that claime💝d she had bought into the rare-earth enterprise for around $500,000.
Yeung — who one insider describedꦐ as “into racing and living large and looking for opportunities” — fell for it all.
In🙈 the summer of 2010, Belan and Yeung traveled to Dubai to work on a deal for a mine. There the driver ♔was introduced to the (non-existent) government minister’s daughter, who Belan claimed was a Yale graduate. Yeung questioned why this Ivy Leaguer spoke no English. According to court documents, Belan said she “did not need to learn [it] because she had studied Russian literature.”
From 2011 to 2013, Yeung wired a total of $4.5 million to Belan’s bank account. The driver claims he sold his home 🌄and his Bentley and McLaren luxury autos to free up funds💝.
By 2014, Belan convinced Yeung to sell a building he owned in ord💎er to fund another mining investment. Belan even provided “buyers” for the building, saying they would 🧜directly pay Belan, who would use the cash to purchase mine shares.
As proof of the sale, Belan sent Yeung a🔯 photo of himself with stacks of cash. But n❀o buyers existed; instead, the transferred ownership of the $13 million building went to Belan.
“The buyers, the bank statements and even the cash pictured . . . were all fake,” Berman wrote t🦂o Woods🐈.
“The buyers, the bank statements and even the cash were fake.”
- Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman
The charade fell apart thanks to ﷽Belan’s girlfriend, Olena Chumachenko.
Byღ the spring of 2018, that relationship had turned rocky; a sourceꦕ characterized it as “tumultuous.”
In July of that year, Belan took their two young sons to LA without Chumachenko’s consent. Weeks later, the trio made it to Manhattan, where Chumachenko caught upꦐ and filed a Hague Convention action (designed to resolve international kidnapping cases).
There, Belan refused to let Chumachenko🤪 see their children. So she retaliated.
“To put pressure on Val, Olena called Jacky . . . [a🌃nd told him] that Val had stolen their children and was not allowing her to see them,” said the source. “Jacky asked Olena about his investments, including the mines. Olena told Jacky she had no idea what he was talking about and that Val did not invest in mines.”
Jacky finally suspected that he’d been had and the Southern District ༺of New York prosecutor’s office was conta🧸cted.
At Belan’s senteꦑncing, defense attorney Florian Miedel insisted that Yeung and Belan’s relationship is “complicated, ambiguous, multifaceted.”
But it came down to old-school cunning an𝕴d a naivete.
As ܫper Miedel: “Mr. Yeung . . . [was] blinded by opportunities that might have appeared to be too good to be true.”