Come la moglie di un tuttofare ha aiutato un erede di Hermès a scoprire di aver perso 15 miliardi di dollari

>When French authorities interviewed Eric Freymond earlier this year, one of their first questions for the Swiss wealth manager was a simple one: Tell us about your relationship with Nicolas Puech, the Hermès heir who had given Freymond effective control over a fortune now estimated at more than $15 billion.

>Freymond replied with a bombshell: The two men were lovers. 

>“I think that in a certain way he loved me. We were a couple,” Freymond said, adding that they were “extremely discreet” about the relationship. 

>But according to Puech, this was all a lie—one of many Freymond spun over the years to create an elaborate fiction around his client. Puech told French investigating magistrates that his money manager was not a lover but rather a trusted friend who became a Svengali-like figure and isolated him from friends and family so that he could siphon away a massive fortune.

>Puech, the 82-year-old fifth-generation heir to one of Europe’s most iconic and profitable businesses, testified that Freymond “turned out to be a con man, even a gangster.” 

Freymond, who was 67 years old and married with two daughters, was struck by a train and killed in July in his Alpine village near Gstaad, a death local police concluded was a suicide. 

>The testimony from Freymond and Puech was reviewed by the Journal; it has not been publicly released and much of it hasn’t been previously reported. The testimony, as well as other legal documents and the accounts of people who knew both of them, provide fresh details about the relationship at the center of what could be one of the frauds of the century—a $15 billion vanishing act involving the largest individual holding of shares of Hermès, the prestigious French luxury group considered the pinnacle of the fashion world and best known for its iconic silk scarves and Birkin handbags.

Read the full story (free link): [https://www.wsj.com/finance/hermes-nicolas-puech-eric-freymond-fraud-investigation-cc8f017f?st=r925UJ&mod=wsjreddit](https://www.wsj.com/finance/hermes-nicolas-puech-eric-freymond-fraud-investigation-cc8f017f?st=r925UJ&mod=wsjreddit)

That kind of betrayal is sickening. Eric Freymond is definitely in a very special place in hell.