Trustor | The Man Who Bought a Company With Its Own Money

About this episode

What if you could buy an entire company without spending a single dollar of your own money — by using the company's own cash to pay for itself? Ever wondered if you could buy a company using that company's own money? In the summer of 1997, a group of European businessmen did exactly that — and it's one of the wildest financial cons you've never heard of. This week the guys dig into the Trustor scandal, a mind-bending corporate takeover masterminded from behind bars by a Danish tax attorney turned convicted fraudster named Joachim Posner, the "ghost" who talked through his cousin so no one would know he was involved. Using a five-day payment gap and a loophole in loosened 90s European regulations, the crew took controlling shares of the investment firm Trustor, funneled the company's own assets through a fresh Barclays account, and paid the previous owner with his own money. Meanwhile two of the conspirators fled to the French Riviera and torched 50 million euros in two months — matching Ferraris (one immediately lost), 408 bottles of champagne, a yacht with a helicopter pad, and buying out an entire Versace store down to the light bulbs. It's absurd, it's insane, and it ends wit