Page 50 of Billionaire Unexplained: Kaleb

Kaleb

“Devon and I are finished looking everything over,” Tanner told me while my brothers and I sat in my office in Billings. “Someone has definitely been syphoning millions from Anna’s earnings. Our guess is the same as yours. It’s all going to a shell company masquerading as an investment.”

My heart sank, even though I’d already known my brothers would see the same thing I had.

Anna had trusted me with the passwords to all of her business accounts, her books, and her investment accounts after I saw something that didn’t look quite right in the documents she’d sent me a month ago.

I’d downplayed the possible issue because I didn’t want to alarm her for no reason.

I’d asked Tanner and Devon to take a look after I’d done a few weeks of digging into all of her finances for the last decade or so, just to verify my findings.

“On the surface,” I started solemnly. “Everything looks okay. The money goes out on a regular basis to what looks like a legit investment. But I noticed that she was actually getting zero returns for that investment, and there’s a lot of money that went there in the last two years. The statements were total bullshit when you dig deep enough.”

Tanner and Devon both nodded from their seats in front of my desk.

“It’s the same red flag we saw,” Tanner observed. “I called in a favor and found out the account for that company is empty. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find out where all that money went.”

My anger increased as I realized that she would probably never see that money again. Anna had been swindled for the last two years. “I couldn’t find out who actually owns that company, either,” I told my brothers. “I think the documents given to the bank for the account and the owner’s identity are all fake.”

“I tried to find something to prove the legitimacy of the company, too,” Devon commented. “But I couldn’t find a damn thing. Everything looked good with her books and investments until two years ago when a lot of money started going out to this company.”

I nodded. “I noticed the same thing. There were improvements that could have been made to her investments to boost her returns, but there was nothing that didn’t check out until this particular investment started.”

“Who was responsible for that investment?” Tanner asked.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted.

“Who had the authority to do it?” he questioned.

“As far as I know, her dad did her investing, paid her business related bills, and kept track of her business books. He provided all the info to her business accountant for taxes. Her dad did a creditable job considering that he didn’t have the expertise that a professional business manager and wealth manager would have had to do it. And her books are meticulous.”

“Fuck!” Tanner cursed. “Do you think her father was ripping off his own daughter?”

I shook my head slowly. “I thought about her parents,” I mused. “But Anna would have given them anything they wanted. She gave them millions to retire in style in Newport Beach, and she paid her dad a more than generous salary to manage her business affairs. Everything was on the up and up until two years ago. I think it’s more likely that someone convinced her dad to invest in this company for her, and he didn’t dig deep enough to see that it was a fraud. He was pretty conservative with her portfolio. Maybe too conservative at times. It must have been someone he trusted or someone very convincing.”

“Makes sense,” Tanner agreed thoughtfully.

“She still has a lot of money,” Devon observed. “But it pisses me off that someone would help themselves to her funds. Musicians work hard and someone like Anna gives up her privacy and most of her normal life to work at her craft. She deserved every penny she made.”

It didn’t surprise me that my brothers were enraged on Anna’s behalf. Both of them adored her, and vice versa.

Frankly, it pissed me off, too. In fact, it infuriated me that some asshole had drained some of the money she’d worked so hard for over the last seventeen years.

I knew what her goals were, and that she’d worked hard all these years to gain her freedom.

Yeah, she still had the wealth to stop touring. Hell, she could stop working altogether and live the life of a very wealthy person with the right investments to keep her cash flowing in.

But the draining of her cash into a shell company needed to stop immediately.

Then she needed the appropriate people handling her wealth, specialists who were used to dealing with millions of dollars for their clients to grow that wealth.

“What are you going to do?” Tanner asked.

“I already stopped the damage by keeping any further funds from going into this particular investment,” I replied. “I also tweaked some of her investments to increase her gains. I’m going to help her get her money into the hands of reputable professionals who can be on top of her money all the time. She can’t take this on herself. It would be a major suck of her time, and she doesn’t have that kind of extra time or the expertise to put that money to work for her in the best ways possible.”

“A lot of entertainers aren’t that great at managing that kind of money,” Devon informed me. “They’re right-brained thinkers.”

“You’re a musician and you handle your own money,” I pointed out.

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