Owner of the well known flat racing Phoenix Thoroughbred group, Amer Abdulaziz Salman’s Phoenix Luxembourg Fund, which as said by its founder to be “the world’s first regulated thoroughbred fund”, has been placed into voluntary liquidation amidst the allegations of the owner stealing €100m to fund the project.
The 56 year old set up the ownership group back in 2017 and on many occasions has spoken about the fund being set up in Luxembourg so the operation can be as transparent as possible.
(Credit Racing Post) Speaking back in 2018 Abdulaziz said: "We've been working on the project for four years getting the structure and investors in place and we're going to be fully regulated by the authorities in Luxembourg within the next two to three weeks.
"We have fund managers to report back to, and transparency has to be 200 per cent being regulated in Luxembourg. We like the transparency."
Later on in that year he said: "Our legal structure is very unique. We're the only regulated [thoroughbred] fund worldwide, which for me is a huge achievement.
“To come up with a legal structure like that wasn't easy and took a lot of effort. We're unique and very proud of that."
The Phoenix Thoroughbred name has now been put in disrepute with it going into Liquidation and it being up in the air what is going to happen to the horses they own.
They have had some superb horses over the last few years with multiple Group One winner Advertise leading the way for the group along with second in the Dubai World Cup with Gronkowski.
(Credit Racing Post) A source with knowledge of the situation said: "This fund never got off the ground. It never did business and wasn’t approved for any assets.
"Imagine someone built a warehouse, hired a manager. That manager never showed up for work, nothing ever went into the warehouse or went out of the warehouse."
Abdulaziz was named in a US court this month by a witness in a huge money-laundering trial in regards to a cryptocurrency scam through the company OneCoin.
The witness alleged Abdulaziz acted as a key money launderer for the operation before stealing €100 million from the scheme to fund his Phoenix Thoroughbred.