Inside The Secret Dubai Homes Of CZ, Mukesh Ambani And 20 Other Billionaires

Forbes

Forbes investigated and mapped out the multimillion dollar homes of CZ, Mukesh Ambani and the emirate's other ultra-rich property owners.  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2024/05/14/inside-the-secret-dubai-homes-cz-mukesh-ambani-billionaires-binance/?sh=2d6d1d06319e  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

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00:00Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Thursday, May 16th.

00:05Today on Forbes, Dubai unlocked.

00:09Inside the secret billionaire hideaways.

00:12In December 2023, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who is also known as CZ, asked the judge

00:19in his money laundering case in the U.S. District Court of Seattle if he could return to his

00:23home in Dubai while awaiting sentencing.

00:26The request was rejected, but when Zhao concludes his four-month prison sentence later this

00:30year, the crypto mogul is likely to return to the Middle Eastern emirate.

00:35While it was well known that CZ owned an apartment in Dubai, the details have been kept under

00:39wraps until now.

00:41Through corporate filings for Binance subsidiaries in Ireland, Forbes had previously linked Zhao

00:47to a 429-square-foot studio apartment in a 23-story building on the dusty edges of Dubai,

00:53an unlikely home for a tycoon worth $33 billion.

00:58However, more recently, Forbes dug into dozens of property records in Dubai and matched them

01:03with information from corporate filings for Binance entities in Malta.

01:08That ultimately uncovered Zhao's actual Dubai home, an 11,600-square-foot, six-bedroom apartment

01:15in the 118, a luxury residential tower in the heart of downtown, which he purchased

01:19for $13.5 million in October 2021.

01:24Zhao isn't the only billionaire whose recent purchases of Dubai real estate, Forbes has

01:28investigated. In 2022, Mukesh Ambani, Asia's richest person, spent a combined $238

01:35million on two villas on Palm Jumeirah, an exclusive palm tree-shaped archipelago of

01:41artificial islands.

01:43Both purchases broke the record for the most expensive home sale in Dubai.

01:47Documents seen by Forbes reveal the staggering size of the properties for the first time.

01:52Ambani bought the first, a 27,544-square-foot villa, in March 2022.

01:59He then bought a 59,570-square-foot home down the road seven months later.

02:05Both were acquired through two offshore entities, including one tied to his publicly traded

02:09conglomerate Reliance Industries.

02:13Forbes found that one billionaire, Vinod Adani, owns far more properties than was

02:17previously known.

02:19Seventeen personally, plus one held by his wife, Ranjan Ben, and two via Dubai-based

02:25Adani Global FZE.

02:28The older brother of Gautam Adani, once briefly the world's third-richest person, Vinod

02:34has an estimated $22.2 billion fortune, thanks to his stakes in various companies in the

02:39Adani Group, the Indian conglomerate run by his brother, which he holds through offshore

02:44entities in Mauritius and the United Arab Emirates.

02:47His most valuable property is a 19,000-square-foot villa in the Tony Emirates Hills neighborhood,

02:53touted as the so-called Beverly Hills of Dubai, worth an estimated $10 million.

02:57But he also owns several apartments, as well as a smaller, 8,850-square-foot villa in Jumeirah

03:04Park, a neighborhood that faces the Jumeirah Islands.

03:08In an investigation led by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, or

03:12OCCRP, and Norwegian outlet E24, Forbes spent months investigating hundreds of Dubai land

03:19registry documents to uncover the most comprehensive picture to date of not only which billionaires

03:24own properties in the city-state, but what exactly they own.

03:28Altogether, Forbes found 76 properties worth more than $600 million owned by 22 billionaires

03:35and their family members.

03:36They come from all over the world, hailing from 10 countries on four continents.

03:41The properties were revealed as part of Dubai Unlocked, a collaborative reporting project

03:46based on leaked data providing a detailed overview of hundreds of thousands of properties

03:50in Dubai and information about their ownership or usage, largely from 2020 to 2022.

03:57The data was obtained by the Center for Advanced Defense Studies, a nonprofit organization

04:01based in Washington, D.C., that researches international crime and conflict.

04:05It was then shared with E24 and OCCRP, which coordinated an investigative project with

04:1174 media outlets in 58 countries.

04:15Journalists used the data as a starting point to explore the landscape of foreign property

04:19ownership in Dubai.

04:21OCCRP, E24, Forbes, and their partners spent months verifying the identities of the people

04:27who appeared in the leaked data, as well as confirming their ownership status using official

04:32records, open source research, and other leaked data sets.

04:36Representatives for the billionaires with properties in Dubai either declined to comment

04:40or did not respond to Forbes' questions.

04:43Billionaires' attraction to Dubai is well known.

04:46After all, the Emirate has no capital gains or income taxes, making it an attractive place

04:50for wealthy investors to park their cash.

04:53Luxury properties there also happen to be good investments.

04:56Home prices in the Emirate rose by nearly 30 percent over the past two years, according

05:00to Deloitte.

05:02The booming market has been a boon for local billionaires, too.

05:05Many of the city's most coveted neighborhoods, islands, and towers were built by developers

05:10who have gotten wealthy thanks to the influx of demand for local real estate.

05:15For full coverage, check out Giacomo Tagnini's piece on Forbes.com.

05:21This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes.

05:23Thanks for tuning in.

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