Latest / Be Amazed / This Man Went From 7th Richest Person to Minus 1 Billion

Transcript

This Man Went From 7th Richest Person to Minus 1 Billion · Be Amazed

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: This man went from being the seventh richest person in the world to having a network of minus one billion dollars.
• 0:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now how does someone go and do a thing like that?
• 0:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, turns out the more you have, the more you've got to lose, and this guy lost much more than just money.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, grab some popcorn as we dig into how, through a series of utterly insane twists one man went from having over $30 billion in the bank to landing himself, 30 years in prison without a penny to his name.
• 0:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is the crazy story of Ike Batista.
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: So who exactly is Ikey Batista and how did he fall so far?
• 0:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, to get an understanding of the man behind this tale, first we'll have to take a trip back in time to the mid-20th century Brazil.
• 1:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ike Batista was born to Brazilian businessman Elizer Batista, and his German wife, Judd, on November 3rd, 1956, and Menus Gerais, a Brazilian state famous for being the country's mining capital.
• 1:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ike's father set up pretty clear example of how to carve out some financial success, working as an engineer at Valet de Riodosi, one of Brazil's largest metal and mining companies in 1961, aged just 36, and Eliza made it to that top of the company as president, setting a president
• 1:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: for accomplishment for his children.
• 1:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: At that time, Validero Doci was a state-owned company meeting that Eliza was not only one of the top businessman in Brazil, but also an important government figure.
• 1:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: During his successful career, Eliza spent time as Brazil's minister of mines and energy in 1962 which provided him and subsequently Ike, with invaluable knowledge of the country's landscape of gold mines.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: This knowledge was something Ike would come to use and indeed abuse in his adult years, but more on that later.
• 2:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: In his childhood, Ike, his mother, and his siblings moved from home to home around Europe where Ike began mapping out a path for his own future.
• 2:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: In 1974, he followed in his father's mechanically-minded footsteps while undertaking a degree in engineering at Germany's University of Hawken.
• 2:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: While studying Hiky began making some extra money as a door-to-door insurance salesman, which was quite the baptism of fire for an inexperienced college student.
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, Hiky took to beddling policies like a fish to water, and his natural charm made ceiling sales seem like child's play.
• 2:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: The thrilling challenge of closing a deal not only provided IQ with skills in business and negotiation, but it also seemed to spur on a desired astro-like out on his own.
• 3:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was expected that upon completing his degree, IQ would begin a career at his father's company.
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, part of IQ's University course focused on metallurgy, the study of the technology and science of metal, which triggered some different plans in the young man's mind.
• 3:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: In 1978, Ike had begun to grow tired of his studies, and, after stumbling across a magazine article about the Amazon Gold Rush happening in and around Brazil, his fate was sealed.
• 3:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was here that he made a huge decision, one, that would change the course of his life for reverber, leading him to unimaginable heights of wealth and unforeseeable depths of immorality and crime.
• 3:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the early 1980s, Ike made the drastic decision to abandon his studies and move back to Brazil with a plan to make it big.
• 3:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, Ike hadn't completed his studies and met a logical engineering, what he had learned to give him the necessary knowledge they would underpin his first solo venture.
• 4:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: You see, in the 80s, the Amazon region of North Brazil was the scene of one of the most intense gold rushes in the history of the country.
• 4:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, at the same time, the Brazilian economy was suffering badly from a stagnant debt-ridden economy, where that price of everyday things was rapidly increasing, drastically decreasing the value of cash.
• 4:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: While you might think that would spell disaster for an emerging entrepreneur for the golden
• 4:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: ideal.
• 4:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Historically, in times of economic crises, gold has been considered an inflation-proof investment thanks to its limited supply compared with cash, which means gold retains its value.
• 4:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can print more cash, yet can exactly print gold.
• 4:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks to this, Gold was in high demand, and seizing the opportunity Ike became a dedicated gold trader.
• 4:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ike set up shop as a middleman between mines and gold buyers buying gold directly from mining companies and selling it onto wealthy customers in cellpolo in Rio.
• 5:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Before long, Ike had established an impressive network of 60 buyers across the country, as well as a backing of $500,000 from investors.
• 5:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: This was a roaring success from the start, bringing in $6 million in profit after just 18 months, from which Ike reportedly sliced a cheeky 10% for himself, not bad for a 23-year-old.
• 5:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Armed with his golden reputation Ike spread his pockets full of gold abroad and purchased a small Canadian mining company renaming at TBX Gold.
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Soon after in 1984, he founded the EBX Group, his future holding company under which he would organize all his future acquisitions, and through which his successes and troubles alike would flow.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: But for now, it wasn't just the gold bars that were setting this tycoon-tard glittering, in 1991, Iky married Supermodel and Playboy's inner-vote, Luma Day Oliveira, the cherry on the cake to the life of any newly rich individual.
• 6:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: But signs of Iky's more devious than dishonest side were already beginning to emerge.
• 6:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: At the time of their marriage, not only was Luma already pregnant, but unbeknownst to Luma's Lidog, Ike was still engaged to another woman, cancelling that other ceremony just a week before it was due to take place.
• 6:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Savage By the year 2000 Ike had accumulated eight gold mines across Brazil and Canada as well as a silver mine in Chile, and his companies had generated a colossal twelfth
• 6:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: 20 billion dollars in value altogether.
• 6:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks to Ike's success here and himself the nickname King Midas, after the infamous mythological figure with a magical golden touch.
• 6:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Despite everything he touched seemingly turning gold Ike's still on it more and had dreams of becoming the world's richest man, but the higher you climb the further you've got to fall.
• 7:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: It seemed that Ike's gold mines would run a turn-all but the mining magnet came up against his first major hurdle to the top in 2001.
• 7:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: While in search of new mines, Ike landed on what looked like a great opportunity in Greece, but things didn't turn out quite as well as he'd hoped.
• 7:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ike was a natural rustaker with a track record of charming his way into lucrative deals, but unfortunately his passionate, and somewhat aggressive approach was about to get him into trouble.
• 7:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ike's proposition for his new mining project didn't go down too well with the Greek government and he ended up being denied the environmental license he needed to get started.
• 7:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, Big Head and Ike had already convinced investors to get in on his new scheme and had spent their money in preparation for his new mining project.
• 7:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Without an immediate way to make any of that money back, not only was Ike left with a mountain of debt, but gold prices had plunged to the lowest Ike had ever seen them.
• 8:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ike started up in the early 80s, gold was worth a whopping $700 per house, but prices had now sunk to a mere $250 per house.
• 8:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yikes.
• 8:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the worst was yet to come.
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: After his many missteps in April 2001, Ike found himself forced to resign as CEO and Chairman of TVX and was no longer in charge of the company he found it.
• 8:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not only that, but Ike's marriage at it burraking point and he found himself a fresh divorce scene in 2004.
• 8:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: But before he has start feeling sorry for Ike tales of his previous dealings in gold mining were also starting to come to light and they weren't pretty.
• 8:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: News articles from the early 2000s reported that Ike would go into the Amazon jungle and show the locals who worked in his mind 10-day old newspapers reporting the price of gold.
• 9:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Meanwhile the price had gone up and Ike knew it.
• 9:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Upon collection of the locals freshly mined gold, Ike would pay the chiefs the lower prices listed in the old newspapers and then sell the gold on for the more up-to-date and higher price.
• 9:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: While Ike had gotten used to his magic mightest touch with unpleasant reports like those and others which cropped up hinted at some even shadier dealings.
• 9:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: It might call the failure of his Greek mining project a bit of well-deserved karma.
• 9:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: This setback should have served as a warning to change, but unless, Ike was too busy planning his grand comeback.
• 9:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: After disasters in both his professional and personal life, Ike moved his attention away from gold and back to the umbrella company he'd started in his early years, the E.B.E.E.E.E.E.E.E.
• 9:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: While there was no doubt that Ike lost a lot of cash during the TVX debacle, two things he'd managed to hold onto were his charming salesmanship and his ability to spot an opportunity.
• 9:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: The 2000s saw a spectacular boom in prices for commodities including oil, fuel, and metals, and well Ike wasn't looking to get involved in gold again.
• 10:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: He wasn't about to let the opportunity to rebuild his empire slip.
• 10:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks to the commodities boom, the stock exchange was seeing a buying frenzy with global investors all too willing to loan millions to new commodity-driven businessmen just like Ike.
• 10:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks to Ike's glittering showmanship, he was easily able to gain the trust of a whole host of investors with very full pockets including global conglomerate general electric as well as IBM.
• 10:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: With a new plan and hand to get into as many industries as possible throughout the early 2000s, Ike dipped his toes into various commodity markets and with his private investors, wooed with convincing promises of success, the money floated in.
• 10:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like EBX and TVX, each of these new businesses done the letter X in their name, which Ike said symbolized multiplying wealth.
• 10:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Keeping it humble, Ikey, I like it.
• 11:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And, indeed, Ikey was soon multiplying his own wealth-packeting profits from shares in a whole host of industries, from iron mining to shipbuilding to oil and gas.
• 11:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: In 2008, Ikey finally broke onto the world's exclusive list of billionaires having a master whopping $6.6 billion in personal wealth from his ever-growing collection of profits, bonuses, and shares.
• 11:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Nike was now the 142nd richest person in the world, but it still wasn't enough.
• 11:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the former king might have so it was going to stop at nothing to get to the top.
• 11:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: But at what cost?
• 11:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: After writing the commodities boom wave of the 2000s, I keep found himself a hundred
• 11:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: and 34 steps closer to his dream of becoming the world's richest man.
• 11:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Within just two years of breaking his weight onto the billionaires list, Ike had catapulted himself into the ranks of the top 10 richest men on Earth placing 8th on the list in 2010.
• 11:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: With a cool $27 billion to his name.
• 12:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: By 2012, Ike's personal wealth had sort to no less than $30 billion, and he was now the seventh richest man on the planet and the richest man in all of Brazil.
• 12:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, the titles alone were impressive, Ike had also carefully crafted a larger than like persona with a lavish lifestyle to match his Brazilian air status.
• 12:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: In 2012, Iki dropped an estimated 13.5 million dollars on a lavish mansion and Rio's exclusive neighborhood of Jardimbo, Thanico.
• 12:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: The fantasy pad included not one, but six living rooms, one of which was even equipped with a glass door that allowed the mogul to drag cars straight into the house.
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Picture a showroom style living room where a million dollar Lamborghini sits behind a sofa like a family pad.
• 12:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ike also had a private jet, in fact, three private jets.
• 12:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: There on Ike's $10 million vacation home, and you can start to see how this guy was rapidly becoming the living embodiment of excessive wealth.
• 13:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ike had even started running his mouth at the then-richest person in the world, Mexico's Carlos Slim, bragging that he would soon replace him in the top spot of the richest man on earth.
• 13:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was quoted as saying Carlos Slam should clean both of his rear mirrors because I would not warn him on which side I was going to overtake him.
• 13:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: So clearly, not a lot of humility there, but a whole lot of self-confidence.
• 13:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not only that, but I keep also boasted in 2011 that with Intin years he predicted his net worth would top $100 billion.
• 13:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: But that glittering fortune was about to change dramatically.
• 13:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, it seemed that Nike had refused to leave his aptitude for shady misdelings in the past and reports of his more nefarious scent continued to follow him.
• 13:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: For starters, on his assent to the billionaire's club in the mid-delay 2000s, Nike's mining company MMX was fine several times for breaking environmental regulations.
• 13:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then in 2008, the Tupi Garani tribe accused Aki's logistics company of attempting to force the group off their own ancestral lands.
• 14:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Despite the negative press Aki's wealth continued to swell for quite some time before, the shadier aspects of his dealings got up to him.
• 14:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Their real trouble came in the wake of one huge claim that initially made Nike extremely rich.
• 14:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: In 2010, Nike's fuel company OGX issued statements that they had uncovered what Nike officially estimated to be $1 trillion of recoverable oil and gas deposits in Brazil.
• 14:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Needless to say, this was a very exciting claim from investors as the gold-man-turned-gasman promised investors the fine-to-ment OGX would be able to produce a whopping 750,000 barrels of oil per day.
• 14:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: With the possibility of almost $60 million worth of oil being pumped out daily, it was a claim that skyrocketed OGX's market valued at $19.9 billion.
• 15:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: But little didn't I keep realizing that this great big gas bubble was about that burst for good.
• 15:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: While Iki had made grand claims that OGX would be able to pump 750,000 barrels of oil per day the reality proved vastly different.
• 15:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: When their operations properly began, they ended up delivering no more than 15,000 barrels daily, just 2% of what was promised.
• 15:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ike had borrowed billions to fund the development of his oil and gas ventures, the potential of which he had vastly overestimated, neither through ignorance or more likely, bleeding lies, and with earnings from his measly oil production dwindling, Ike was left struggling to pay off loans he'd secured on empty promises.
• 15:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it wasn't just Ike's gas and oil company that was slipping, and the months to follow Ike's mining company was slapped with a 1.8 billion dollar fund for unpaid taxes and his other companies were swamped with debt.
• 15:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not only that, but Ike had found himself in, up to his neck and debt to some pretty serious people, including a $2 billion debt owed by EBS to none other than Abu Dhabi's royal family.
• 16:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: And in attempt to make a dent in the size of a dent, he was now faced with Nike was forced to part with most of the luxuries he'd enjoyed at his days as a Brazilian hair.
• 16:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: It began with Nike selling off his embrace her legacy 600-pravaget for a while at busting $14 million.
• 16:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: But Nike was into deep and his net worth wasn't just sinking, and it had begun evaporating completely.
• 16:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, his personal fortune had peaked at $30 billion just a year prior, his rising debts and the rapidly plummeting stock prices of his company's meant that by September 2013, his net worth had sunk to just $200 million.
• 16:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: An unbelievable fortune collapsing turn of events represented a jaw-dropping 99% loss for Nike in just 12 months.
• 16:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: In October 2013, OGX defaulted on a $45 million interest loan payment to investors, and just days later, Nike's flagship company was declared officially bankrupt.
• 17:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: By January 2015, Ikey had a personal debt of $1.2 billion and with his estimated net worth a $200 million, that put him in the red by a staggering $1 billion.
• 17:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: While Iki had been used to glittering titles through his career from King-minus to 7th richest man in the world, Iki had now earned himself the new rare title love, negative billionaire.
• 17:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Authorities began seizing Iki's assets, stripping him of all the signs of wealthy love so much.
• 17:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Desperate to get back on top, Ike desperately tried an endless stream of ideas including bizarrely, turning to the spirits to help him in his wealth woes and in 2016 tossed $160,000 worth of gold coins into the ocean, on the advice of a psychic and repentance for his actions.
• 18:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm off for a bit of spirituality here and there, I think I keys $160,000 may have been better spent on his debts than on his conscience, but who knows?
• 18:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it worked out, right?
• 18:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Wrong.
• 18:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I key seemed to have finally seen the air in as ways it was far too late.
• 18:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: If all the debt wasn't bad enough, Karma had something even worse in store for Ike, something he couldn't escape from.
• 18:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, like he skills and salesmanship had made him big bucks in the past, they were about to land him in some even bigger trouble.
• 18:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: In 2014, federal prosecutors and Rio de Janeiro officially accused Nike of deliberately misleading investors when it came to how much oil OGX was going to be able to produce.
• 18:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: While many of Ike's critics hadn't suspected that OGX wasn't going to deliver the daily 750,000 oil barrels promised Ike had promised to personally commit $1 billion to keep the company afloat.
• 18:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: The problem was that Ike never followed through on this promise, and what was worse was that Ike had been accused of selling off his shares in OGX, as soon as he realized things were heading south.
• 19:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: This was labeled as insider trading and it looked as though Iki had made a profit of around $95 million doing just that.
• 19:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: With the accusations spiling up, Iki found himself faced with real consequences for the very first time being put on trial and Brazil's criminal court robes.
• 19:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: In February 2015, a judge ordered police to strip the former king minus of all his remaining assets in Brazil, including all seven of his supercars, boats, and planes.
• 19:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Police also took computers, watches, and over $32,000 in cash for Mikey's home.
• 19:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if you can believe it, Nike hadn't reached his lowest point just yet.
• 19:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: As 2017 rolled around, Nike found himself caught up and yet more travel, when he was tied to yet more criminal dealings.
• 19:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: In a twist, no one saw coming in January 2017, the name Nike but teased to appear on the world's most wanted list, and Nike found himself not only a negative billionaire, but an international fugitive.
• 20:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Nike's name had been on Interpol's most wanted list for no more than a few weeks when authorities tracked him down on a flight back from New York City.
• 20:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was arrested the moment he stepped off the planet Galileo International Airport in Rio.
• 20:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are police on the jetway in front of fellow passengers, a former seventh richest man on Earth in handcuffs.
• 20:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, Ike had first made a name for himself from the cold minds along the Amazon River he now found himself up a different river all together with no battle.
• 20:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Despite Ike vehemently denying the accusations it was no use, and the decade prior Ike had predicted he'd be the richest person on the planet by 2020, and steady found himself facing a potential sentence of 30 years in prison.
• 20:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: From Gold King to Convict, the ex-Billionaire now found himself heading behind bars.
• 21:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: While awaiting the start of his new trial, Nike was detained at Bangu Penitentiary, a sprawling great concrete complex on the outskirts of Rio Ringed with watchtowers and razor wire, baking in the equatorial heat.
• 21:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks, sweating walls over crowded cells that perpetual noise and hundreds of dangerous men confined too close together.
• 21:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: not quite up into a sweet and jardine botanico, and it was a far cry from the similar jury's treatment many of the wealthy elite received when thrown behind bars.
• 21:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: In some prisons inmates are forced to have their head shaved once their arrival arrived at their new hellish home to prevent the spread of lice and unfortunately for Ike Bangu was in favor of this kind of punishment.
• 21:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: If the idea of living in a lice and fest that prison wasn't bad enough, karma wasn't done with Ike just yet.
• 21:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Usually the more educated wealthy prisoners like Ike are given their own private cell at Bangu, but the former king might as wasn't granted this prisoner perk.
• 21:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: The criminal code in Brazil states that only those with a university degree were eligible for private cells and seeing as Ike dropped out to chase gold back in the 80s.
• 22:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: He had this, let it like the rest.
• 22:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: While Ike had grown up with six siblings, he now found himself sharing a cell with six inmates and amongst some of Brazil's most dangerous criminals.
• 22:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah.
• 22:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you want some advice from your old uncle be amazed, stay in school kids and stay out of jail.
• 22:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Conditions at Bangu with a grimest of the grim and thanks to overcrowding many prisoners were forced to sleep on the floor and even the mattresses were reportedly filthy and infested with bugs.
• 22:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: In April 2017, after three grilling months in Bangu, IQ was released to live under house arrest until it was time to face trial.
• 22:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was given this liberty on the judgment that his crimes were not violent and his being outside of prison was deemed unlikely to affect the outcome of his trial.
• 22:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Still after a long courtroom face off, Ike was ultimately found guilty of all charges of corruption and money laundering on July 3, 2018 and was sentenced to a whopping 30 years back behind bars.
• 23:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: He had looked like it was finally the end for Ike, but he wasn't going down without a fight.
• 23:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: His lawyers battled constantly and managed to help keep it mostly out of jail while appealing his various sentences, though the law wasn't done with Nike yet.
• 23:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: In September 2019, Nike found himself back on the hook again and was whacked with an additional sentence of eight years and seven months on charges of market manipulation.
• 23:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: It looked like justice had finally been served, but crafty Nike had one final golden hand to play.
• 23:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: On March 24, 2020, it was announced that I can hit struck a deal with the Brazilian authorities that had been after him all the his time.
• 23:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: The deal was that Ike would serve just four years out of his 38-year sentence serving it mostly, under house arrest and payback 160 million dollars in damages.
• 23:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: To win this highly desirable flea bargain, the X-King of Brazilian capitalism had agreed to collaborate with prosecutors and feed them the information they needed to route out the corruption and Brazil's business landscape.
• 24:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was essentially an agreement to write out the other bad apples among Brazil's elite and the deal was simply too good to pass up.
• 24:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: After all 38 years down to four, who wouldn't take that deal.
• 24:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: But with the 38-year original sentence aside, it's safe to say that I can accumulate it enough and for me to last at least 38 lifetimes.
• 24:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, it seems that the ex-billionaires still isn't giving up on his ambitions.
• 24:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Amazingly, it's reported that Ike is working from home on a grand scheme for his very own epic comeback.
• 24:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not only does he continue to appeal his sentences, but the rumors go that he has plans to get involved in several projects including a gasp-by-blinking Brazil-to-Peroquois.
• 24:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Renewable energy and nanotechnology as well as a new batch of you guessed it, yield minds.
• 24:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm off, or redemption arc, I'd say Ike's sketches were cut out if he really wants to turn things around in close way out of debt, and of course there's the question of whether someone with Ike's history even deserves another chance to become super rich.
• 25:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Once among the world's richest, Ike Baptista will likely be remembered for all together more unpleasant reasons.
• 25:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: With the rise of such epic proportions, you could say that it's only fitting that Ike Baptista's downfall was just as spectacular.
• 25:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: After a dramatic web of corruption and scandal, it's remarkable to think that Ike was once thought of as one of the greatest businessmen in the world.
• 25:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: While there's no doubt that Ike enjoyed major success, we now know that a lot of it came from cutting corners as well as some pretty nefarious dealings.
• 25:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: It raises the question of how common these kinds of shady dealings are among the ultra-rich and indeed whether deeply immoral deeds are in fact an
• 25:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll leave that one up to you folks to decide.
• 25:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: What do you make of Mikey but he's just rise and fall?
• 25:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Could you ever feel sorry for her criminal billionaire?
• 26:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let us know on the comments if the platform allows him.
• 26:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening.