A Brazilian businessman has sued a real estate company for allegedly concealing the identity of billionaire Jeff Bezos in a mansion sale. The tycoon believes that the concealment of the buyer has cost him millions of dollars.
The story began when Leo Kryss, co-founder of toy and electronics company Tectoy (Brazil), put his luxury mansion in Indian Creek Village, Miami Beach, up for sale for $85 million. The mansion is over 20,000 square feet with 7 bedrooms, 11 bathrooms and full amenities.
Kryss hired real estate company Douglas Elliman to find a buyer. However, according to a lawsuit filed by Kryss in July, Douglas Elliman told him that the potential buyer would only be willing to pay a maximum of $79 million.
Not only that, Kryss also proactively asked Douglas Elliman CEO Jay Parker whether Jeff Bezos – the founder of Amazon – was behind the deal. However, CEO Parker “misleadingly asserted” that Bezos was not the buyer.
Believing the real estate company, Kryss agreed to sell the mansion for $ 79 million. However, he later discovered that the real buyer was the Amazon boss. Kryss said that this was “extremely important to the negotiation process and his final decision on the sale price of the house”.
Kryss’s lawsuit, filed in Miami-Dade County court, emphasized that his real estate “would be worth significantly more to Bezos than other potential buyers”. The reason is that Bezos already owns a mansion adjacent to Kryss’ mansion.
According to Forbes’ real-time billionaires list, Bezos is now the second richest person in the world with a net worth of $204 billion, behind only Elon Musk (CEO of SpaceX and owner of social network X, formerly Twitter) with $252.5 billion. Bezos’ real estate portfolio is worth more than $600 million, spanning from New York, Beverly Hills, West Texas to Washington, DC.
Meanwhile, Indian Creek Village is known as “the most prestigious and exclusive area in Miami” with famous residents such as former US President’s daughter Ivanka Trump and former NFL player Tom Brady. Hiding the identity of the buyer is a common tactic used by tycoons to avoid being forced to pay a high price in real estate transactions.
