Chapter 1044 Private Charity Auction
"Brother Huangfu, I'm entrusting this money to you. You can set up a regulatory body and inject a sum of money into it each year based on the actual operation of the Dingguang Foundation. I won't concern myself with the specifics of how it operates..."
The gambling was over. Zhuang Rui declined many invitations from casino owners to have dinner together and returned to his hotel room with Huangfu Yun and others. As for the chips he had won over the past two days, he exchanged them all for Swiss bank drafts, totaling a total of 780 million US dollars.
Zhuang Rui had already decided how to use the money. It would all be used for education and charity in China. It could be considered a way for Zhuang Rui to give back to society after creating a huge fortune through his eyes. In any case, for Zhuang Rui, this was a way of being generous with other people's money.
"You're such a hands-off boss..."
Huangfu Yun glanced at Zhuang Rui with dissatisfaction, but secretly he was grateful. The fact that Zhuang Rui entrusted such a large sum of money to him showed how much he trusted him. As the ancients said, a scholar would die for one who understands him. Huangfu Yun had already decided to work for Zhuang Rui for life after receiving the shares in the Dingguang Museum from Zhuang Rui.
While wealth can certainly be a measure of a person's ability, having a space to utilize that ability is also very important. At least Huangfuyun is currently very happy with his work, dealing with his beloved antiques every day, which saves him from the backstabbing and infighting he experienced as a lawyer. Not everyone in this world can do what they love.
"Nonsense, if this boss requires so much effort, I'd rather just go and work for someone else..."
Zhuang Rui smiled smugly. Although he didn't have many people under him, they were all capable of handling things on their own and had solved a lot of problems for him. Otherwise, let alone the Dingguang Museum, even a small shop like "Xuanrui Zhai" would have kept Zhuang Rui busy all day long.
Having successfully resolved the gambling issue, Zhuang Rui was in high spirits. He waved his hand and said, "Alright, I'm going back to China tomorrow, Brother Huangfu. I won't keep you any longer. But make sure you wash off the smell before you go back, or you'll be punished by kneeling on a keyboard when you get home..."
Huangfu Yun's eyes lit up upon hearing this, and he laughed, "Hehe, how about I get you a couple of hot American girls?"
"Get lost, or you'll get sucked dry..."
Zhuang Rui chuckled and cursed in an annoyed tone. Huangfu Yun opened the door, but didn't go out. He called out, "Fourth Madam, what brings you here?"
"Um?"
Zhuang Rui frowned slightly and looked towards the door. There stood Fourth Madam, dressed in a Chinese cheongsam. Although she was over fifty years old, she looked like she was in her thirties.
"Brother Zhuang, you two keep 'chatting,' I'm leaving now..."
Huangfu Yun winked at Zhuang Rui, smiled, and went out the door. She even carefully closed the door for Zhuang Rui. Zhuang Rui shook his head and smiled bitterly. He wasn't an older sister. In fact, considering Fourth Aunt's age, she was practically an older aunt. What a joke!
"Peng Fei, pour Fourth Madam a cup of tea..."
Fortunately, Peng Fei was in the room; otherwise, if Huangfu Yun had gone out and spread rumors, his wife might have made things difficult for him.
After Peng Fei poured the tea, Zhuang Rui got straight to the point: "Fourth Madam, everyone must be tired today. I'm going back to China tomorrow. Is there anything else you need to tell me?"
Zhuang Rui really didn't want to deal with these people in the gambling world. Putting aside everything else, he had been tricked by the old gambling king when he came to Las Vegas this time.
It seems that Mr. He gave Zhuang Rui a luxury cruise ship worth a fortune, but after Zhuang Rui helped him obtain this gambling license, the old gambling king still made a huge profit compared to the cruise ship. The value of this gambling license is far greater than that of a cruise ship.
Although the fourth wife in front of him was a bit older, she had an elegant demeanor. If she were twenty years younger, Zhuang Rui really wasn't sure if he could resist her mature and alluring charm.
Therefore, when dealing with Fourth Wife, Zhuang Rui was on high alert, and he would immediately refuse any conditions she might propose.
"Mr. Zhuang, I just spoke with SJM's management. In view of your contributions to this gaming license, we have decided to increase your share in the new company to 15%. As you know, this company involves the interests of many parties, and this is the highest percentage of shares we can offer..."
After the fourth wife sat down, she didn't beat around the bush and spoke very directly: she was there to give Zhuang Rui money. Of course, the so-called communication with the higher-ups was actually just a conversation with the old gambling king. In SJM Holdings, Mr. Ho was like a god, and no one dared to disobey his will.
"Fifteen percent? Fourth Wife, I appreciate the gesture, but as for the shares... let's forget about it. I have no intention of getting involved in the gambling industry, and rest assured, I won't accept any invitations from others to cause trouble for your company..."
Zhuang Rui smiled and shook his head, somewhat shocked by SJM's extravagant spending. After all, SJM has now become a super company with assets of over 100 billion US dollars. Although this is the result of decades of development and accumulation, its foundation still lies in the word "gambling".
After the new company is established, although its influence and money-making ability cannot be compared with SJM Holdings, it will definitely reach a market value of 20 to 30 billion after a few years of development. With just one word, the fourth wife gave up 15% of the shares, which is equivalent to giving Zhuang Rui billions of US dollars for free.
“Mr. Zhuang, I think you’ve misunderstood me. These shares are simply what you deserve for winning the gambling license. Furthermore, as a shareholder of the new company, you will only receive annual dividends and will not participate in management or decision-making. You can even delegate your participation in the company’s board meetings to someone else…”
When Fourth Wife spoke, her expression was slightly unnatural. In fact, Zhuang Rui had just hit the nail on the head. She was indeed afraid that Zhuang Rui would be poached by another company and then make things difficult for her new company. Moreover, binding Zhuang Rui to the new company's cause would be extremely beneficial to the company's development.
Putting everything else aside, the fact that Zhuang Rui won the gold bracelet through sheer luck in a blind gamble will likely generate a great deal of interest among gamblers worldwide. This would be a fantastic selling point for the new company. Furthermore, with Zhuang Rui joining the company, even seasoned gamblers who might try to take advantage of the situation will have to think twice.
"Fourth Aunt, the policies in China... seem to allow it, don't they?"
Zhuang Rui was somewhat tempted by the conditions proposed by the fourth wife. He was most afraid of trouble, but if it was really as the fourth wife said, then he would be a figurehead receiving money, with hundreds of millions of dollars in dividends every year, which would allow Zhuang Rui to do a lot of things.
"Mr. Zhuang, there will be a lot of capital injected into the new company from within China, but they will only hold a very small portion of the shares. Macau's policies will not change for at least the next fifty years..."
Zhuang Rui could understand what the fourth wife was saying. In the 1980s, a great man set the tone for the future development of Hong Kong, Macao and even Taiwan, which was indeed something that no one or force could change.
After thinking for a moment, Zhuang Rui said, "How about this, Fourth Madam, I'll have Huangfu Yun contact you when we get back, and he can discuss the details with you..."
Some time ago, Huangfuyun advised Zhuang Rui to register an offshore company to handle some domestic investments. Zhuang Rui was somewhat tempted, thinking that this might be a viable option. However, Zhuang Rui was not very familiar with the specific policies and regulations involved, and he was not in a hurry to do so.
"All right……"
Fourth Wife shook her head helplessly. You see, countless people would kill to get a share of SJM Holdings' new shares, but Zhuang Rui couldn't even give them away. This was something Fourth Wife, who had been in the business world for a long time, found very difficult to accept.
"Oh, Mr. Zhuang, there's one more thing..."
"Hmm? Fourth Aunt, I'm going back to Beijing first thing tomorrow morning. Is there anything else?"
Zhuang Rui frowned. He couldn't keep asking his buddies for money, or he'd really be seen as a gambling god.
"Here's the thing, I have a businessman friend in Los Angeles, California, who is going to hold a private charity auction at his home soon. There are quite a few antiques from China in the auction. I heard that Mr. Zhuang is interested in this kind of collection, so I was wondering if you are interested in this auction?"
Fourth Wife was somewhat embarrassed by Zhuang Rui's words. She had originally wanted to please him, but she had been rebuffed. When had she ever suffered such a setback as someone of her status?
"Uh... Fourth Madam, look at my temper, I'm sorry, but I'm interested in that auction, very interested. Could you give me an address so I can go take a look..."
Zhuang Rui was taken aback upon hearing this, then scratched his head and quickly apologized to Fourth Aunt, feeling embarrassed. He wondered if it was because he had been in the antique business for so long that he had developed a deep-seated empathy for people.
"It's alright, this is his business card. Mr. Zhuang can just say he's my friend when he goes there..."
After handing Zhuang Rui a business card, Fourth Aunt chatted for a few minutes before hurriedly taking her leave. She simply couldn't stay in that room for long; staying there for too long would be too humiliating.
“Bernardet Tebard, California…”
Zhuang Rui looked at the business card in his hand, pondered for a moment, then picked up his phone and dialed Huangfu Yun's number.
Huangfu Yun walked into Zhuang Rui's room with a disgruntled look on his face and immediately yelled, "I said... can't you talk about it tomorrow? Why do you have to come to me now?"
"Brother Huangfu, you're an expert on America and have many friends here. Could you help me look up this person's information?"
Zhuang Rui interrupted Huangfu Yun's grumbling, patted the horse, and handed over the business card in his hand.
“Bernardet? I know him. How do you have his business card?”
Huangfu Yun glanced at the name on the business card and immediately looked astonished.
Chapter 1045 Nazi Wealth
"Hmm? Brother Huangfu, you know this person? It seems you have quite a wide network of connections in America..."
Zhuang Rui was also taken aback. He had originally wanted Huangfu Yun to ask his friends to inquire, but he didn't expect that this guy knew him himself. It seems that he used to do quite well in the United States. You know, the people that Fourth Wife can call friends are probably worth more than 10 billion US dollars.
Huangfu Yun gave a wry smile and said, "Well, I do know him, but I doubt he recognizes me. You've really come to the right person. In America, only a very few people are worthy of knowing Bonadette's true identity..."
As Zhuang Rui had guessed, this person named Bonadette was indeed no ordinary person.
After World War II, a new conglomerate called the California Group emerged in California, USA. It included the Bank of America Group, the San Francisco Group, and the Los Angeles Group.
The group's economic strength grew rapidly during World War II, along with the rapid development of California's arms industry. In particular, the growth rate of its financial capital was astonishing, forming a large conglomerate with the Bank of America as its financial center.
Just twenty years later, in 1974, this conglomerate had become the third largest in terms of assets and played a major role in American political and economic life. Together with the Southern conglomerates, it formed a new arms industry group that became a force to be reckoned with against the old Northeastern conglomerates.
Now, more than 30 years have passed since the 1970s, and the influence of this conglomerate has long been integrated into every corner of the United States and even the world. Its actual assets are simply incalculable. Bonadette is the behind-the-scenes leader of this conglomerate. Since the late 1980s, he has firmly controlled the lifeline of this large conglomerate and has a great influence in the United States.
It's important to understand that while the American social structure can be described as highly free, to put it bluntly, all of America's politics and diplomacy are controlled by financial groups. For example, the funds needed for presidential campaigns are donated by these groups. Imagine how a president could possibly remain unaffected after taking office.
Therefore, people like Bernadette are truly upper-class figures in the United States. Their influence in certain circles is unmatched, even by the President of the United States. The social resources they can utilize far exceed the imagination of ordinary people. As for the American Mafia or other organized crime groups, they are as vulnerable as children in front of these people.
"Brother Huangfu, how did you come to know him?"
After listening to Huangfu Yun's introduction, Zhuang Rui couldn't help but feel a little strange. Real tycoons like him are usually very low-key. As Huangfu Yun said, very few people in the United States know Bernardet. It would be understandable if the Fourth Wife knew him, but given Huangfu Yun's status, it would be difficult for him to reach that circle.
Huangfu Yun laughed upon hearing this and said, "The place where I used to work had some business dealings with him..."
It turns out that this man named Bonadette came from a military family. Back in the 19th century, during the era of firearms, members of his family held high positions in the U.S. government and were involved in the mining of gold in California, accumulating a large amount of initial capital.
The Bonadette family was involved in both World War I and World War II. When the American army entered Berlin, one of the most outstanding members of the Bonadette family, Bonadette's father, was a general. Huangfuyun's so-called business originated from an event during that time.
Although the American army entered Berlin later than the Soviet Red Army in order to reduce its own casualties, the wealth looted by the Nazis from all over the world still made the Americans a fortune. According to the account of an American soldier at the time, one can understand how enormous that wealth was.
“We felt like we had entered a treasure trove from Arabian Nights. The scene inside was indescribable. Before us was a brightly lit, 23-meter-wide and 45-meter-long secret room containing more than 7,000 marked bags, knee-high, stacked in 20 rows, with each row about 1 meter apart.”
On the other side of the room were bundles of cash, each labeled "Melmer." These boxes clearly belonged to alias accounts of the Nazi SS, providing the first clue to the scope and complexity of the wealth looted by the Nazis in Europe.
We opened the bags and listed the contents: 8,198 gold ingots, 55 boxes of gold bars (two bars per box, each weighing 10 kilograms), hundreds of bags of gold utensils and artifacts, over 1,300 bags of gold marks, gold francs and gold pounds, 711 bags of $20 gold coins, hundreds of bags of gold and silver coins from 15 other countries, hundreds of bags of foreign exchange notes, 9 bags of rare ancient gold coins, and 2,380 bags and 1,300 boxes of German mark cash.
The shipment contained 2.76 billion silver dollars, 20 silver ingots each weighing 200 kilograms, 40 bags of silver bars, 63 boxes and 55 bags of silver plates, a bag of platinum (containing 6 platinum ingots), and 110 bags of diamonds and jewelry looted from different countries.
In other tunnels, we also discovered a large number of precious artworks looted from museums across Europe and from private individuals: oil paintings, prints, pencil drawings, sculptures, antique clocks, stamp albums, and more. These treasures also revealed the cruelty of the Nazis, including several bags of gold teeth pulled from the mouths of prisoners in extermination camps among the gold artifacts…
The discovery of this treasure, known to later generations as the Merkles Treasure, was part of a pre-planned scheme by the Nazis to transport and hide the wealth plundered during the war to other countries.
In early 1946, the monetary gold (gold bars, gold bricks, and gold coins) in the Merks Treasure were transferred to the Allied War Reparations Commission, and finally to the Gold Restitution Commission of the United States, Britain, and France, who were responsible for returning the gold to the central banks of the victim countries as soon as possible.
Besides this treasure, another similarly sized treasure was the gold looted by the Ustaše regime in Croatia, but this gold was never found.
There are indications that they were most likely secretly smuggled out of Europe by the Vatican and the CIA. How much of this treasure remained in the Vatican remains a mystery. Several smaller Nazi treasure sites have also been discovered in the Austrian Alps.
Apart from the Merck Treasure, the other treasures eventually disappeared without a trace. Many treasures vanished from people's sight for no apparent reason. Apart from a few observant individuals, many people forgot about the existence of these treasures as time went by.
In early 2003, some European countries that were victims of World War II suddenly raised the issue of Nazi treasure, which attracted the attention of relevant organizations. With the cooperation of many countries, many long-forgotten histories were gradually unveiled.
Numerous pieces of evidence indicate that not only was part of the Merkle treasure hidden by Bonadette's father, but also some smaller Nazi treasures that were later unearthed were secretly transported out of Europe by Bonadette's father. Of course, he did not hand these things over to the state.
The revelation of this incident caused a huge uproar in the United States and European countries. Several countries that were deeply ravaged by World War II united to demand that the current Bernadette return the gold, gold bars, gold coins and other treasures that he had secretly hidden at the time, and sent a joint legal team.
There's a saying in the legal profession: "Law is a game for the rich." This statement has been proven true in the United States. Besides the billionaire football star who was acquitted of murdering his wife, Mr. Bonadette also spent a lot of money hiring hundreds of lawyers, who utterly defeated the lawyer alliances of those small countries.
Huangfu Yun knew about this because he was one of the hundred lawyers involved. He learned about Bernardet through this case. Of course, the case was not publicly tried, and even after the verdict, very few people knew about Bernardet.
After hearing this bizarre story, Zhuang Rui became curious and asked, "Brother Huangfu, you were involved in that case. How much treasure do you estimate old Bonadette embezzled from Germany back then?"
Huangfu Yun pondered for a moment, seemingly thinking about the case from back then, before finally saying, "According to the figures proposed by those claimants, this fortune was already worth hundreds of billions of US dollars at the time. If it were today, it would be worth at least trillions, it's simply incalculable..."
Let alone the wealth represented by hundreds of billions of dollars in the 1940s and 50s, just take the multi-millionaires in China in the 1980s as an example. Those multi-millionaires back then were no less than those ranked at the top of the Forbes rich list today. You can imagine how much wealth they had.
"Damn, so this conglomerate was built on the wealth of half of Europe. No wonder it's grown so fast..."
Zhuang Rui now understands why such an emerging power could rival the established powers in the United States in just a few decades. With Nazi gold as capital, it would be difficult for them to develop slowly.
After Huangfu Yun finished explaining to Zhuang Rui, he asked somewhat curiously, "By the way, Zhuang Rui, you still haven't told me how you got this person's business card? Let me tell you, although this person isn't well-known, in terms of real power, even Bill Gates is far inferior to him..."
Zhuang Rui understood Huangfu Yun's meaning. In this world, the most famous people are not necessarily the richest. Bill Gates is famous, but the foundation and strength of many established financial institutions far surpass those of these financial upstarts who have risen to prominence in the last two or three decades.