The Downfall of Real Estate Demi-Gods: HFZ, Meir, and Omnibuild Apparently Caught in a Game of Fraud
Key Points:
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The real estate giants, HFZ, Meir and Omnibuild have found themselves in a bitter soup of apparently swindling subcontractors, investors, and even the City of New York. Tsk tsk! Being naughty isn’t nice.
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Ziel Feldman, the head honcho at HFZ Capital Group, along with other top execs, are said to have had the audacity to divert millions in funds designated for their condo project – The XI, to cover personal and unrelated business expenses. That’s like stealing candy from a baby, only a really expensive, luxurious candy that potentially costs millions.
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Allegedly the merry band at Omnibuild were not a bunch of innocent bystanders either. Essentially they have been accused of playing a notable role in this sordid scheme – helping to conjure fake invoices to siphon off funds. Ah the element of teamwork… for all the wrong reasons.
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Let’s spare a thought for subcontractors who barely scraped their payments and even HFZ’s investors hustling to recoup all they have lost. Meanwhile, good ol’ City of New York feels swindled after granting tax benefits to the dazzling duo of HFZ and Meir. Talk about raining on the parade!
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The plot thickens as this leads to a national lawsuit, making it one chunky meatball of a case for prosecutors to sink their teeth into!
The Hilarious Truth – A hot-take
Well, well, well, if it isn’t the mother of all real estate faux pas! Imagine this: big shot honchos in shiny suits and sparkling cufflinks, sitting in their high-rise condos (funded with stolen money, I might add), drawing up diabolical plans to rob Peter to pay Paul. It’s like a mobster movie, only less guns and pasta, and more paperwork and construction cranes. I can almost see Al Pacino wrapping up a deal in his godfather accent. “I’m gonna make him an invoice he can’t refuse”.
And don’t even get me started on the hearty involvement of Omnibuild. You know what they say: No one builds a web of deceit like a construction company who knows its bricks and cement, right? Wrong!
The real punch line, though, is that all this swindling was not for some secret lair in a tropical paradise or a gold-dusted caviar farm (cue the evil laugh), but for a condo project… the XI. More ‘ex’ than ‘extraordinary’ if you ask me.
The moral of the story is: nothing good comes from making money the dishonest way. For the high and mighty real estate biggies who thought they could pull a fast one, the only ‘suite’ they might be booking is a suite in the state penitentiary! Who said there’s no such thing as karma?
Original article: https://www.inman.com/2024/02/08/nir-meir-charged-with-larceny-alongside-hfz-omnibuild-execs/
