Chapter 220: The Bait (3)
My goal was to catch John Lau.
To do that, I needed the help of law enforcement.
Fortunately, thanks to Patricia’s excellent negotiating skills, we already had the cooperation of the Department of Justice and the FBI.
An official sting operation was about to begin.
But before that, there was one last task to complete.
I had to turn Gonzalez into the perfect bait.
So I poured all my time and energy into his special training.
“John Lau, 33 years old, ethnically Chinese, Malaysian citizen. Graduated from the prestigious Harrow School in the UK and later from Wharton. He played a key role in establishing the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund MDB in 2009, though he holds no official titles. He’s a shadowy figure who always operates from behind the scenes.”
The first step was to thoroughly drill John Lau’s profile into him.
But I was already worried whether Gonzalez could absorb so many detailed facts… “You’re not going to teach me the taunting skill?”
“The taunting skill?”
“I mean Sean’s trademark move.”
Gonzalez’s interest was wandering somewhere completely off track.
He was talking about the “provoking” technique I often used.
“Isn’t that a required skill if I’m going to play the wild dog?”
Sigh...
A long sigh escaped me without thinking.
Gonzalez still didn’t understand what being a wild dog truly meant.
“I’ve told you many times—real wild dogs never provoke others.”
“But Sean, you—”
“I’m not a wild dog.”
I cut him off firmly and began repeating an explanation I’d already gone through many times.
“A true wild dog is arrogant beyond measure. They think the world revolves around them and that everyone else is beneath them.”
Gonzalez nodded at my words.
“In contrast, taunting is a tactic used by those with shaky status who want attention. Why would someone already at the top waste time doing that?”
He couldn’t have misunderstood the explanation.
Like I’d felt before, Gonzalez was eccentric, not stupid.
Still, no matter how many times I explained it, he didn’t seem convinced.
Half-listening, he muttered to himself,
“Still, isn’t taunting kind of essential...?”
At this point, I figured the wild dog thing was just an excuse.
He probably just wanted to learn how to provoke people effectively.
Guess I’ve got no choice...
Continuing the training while he was distracted would be inefficient.
So I decided to teach him a little of what he was so eager to learn.
“Taunting only works when you hit a person’s exact complex. If you miss, you’re the one who ends up looking foolish.”
His eyes sparkled.
Seizing the opportunity, I began explaining more about John Lau.
“John Lau’s biggest complex is that he’s not a true tycoon. He’s always walked a fine line.”
In fact, the Lau family was considered upper class in Malaysia.
They’d accumulated massive wealth through real estate investment.
That’s why John Lau had been able to study abroad at one of the best schools in the UK.
However—
Everyone he met there had wealth on a completely different level.
Arab royalty, billionaires...
Even as a billionaire himself, he must’ve felt small and insignificant among them.
That was when John Lau began indulging in excessive luxury and started presenting himself as Malaysian royalty.
That snowball rolled and eventually led to his life of fraud.
“This inferiority complex is Lau’s fatal weakness. All you need to do is show him a world above billionaires, and that alone will be enough to rattle him.”
When I linked the lesson to something Gonzalez found interesting, he finally seemed satisfied.
But just when things seemed to be going smoothly, another issue arose.
“Do we really have to bring up the inheritance?”
Gonzalez was objecting to a part of my scenario.
The trap I designed went like this:
Gonzalez, the third son of the Andorra Group.
Officially, he was out of the line of succession, but he was now trying to jump back into the inheritance war.
He quit his hedge fund job and founded a mining development company.
His goal was to achieve success through this mining project, earn recognition from his family and the market, and get his name back in the succession game.
That way, we could lure John Lau into investing in the company.
“If rumors spread that I’m interested in the inheritance, things could get complicated.”
Now he was insisting on removing the most crucial part—his role in the succession.
“I’m not even interested in the Andorra Group’s succession. It’s not like I’m short on money. I prefer freedom.”
It was unexpected, but under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have cared.
Whatever Gonzalez felt about his family was his own business.
But this was different.
“It’s not like we’re really aiming for the succession, right? It’s just an act.”
“Even so, just the rumors would be a headache…”
“Those rumors will die down in a few months. Besides, this part is essential. Who would invest just because someone’s a wild dog? They invest because there’s a chance that wild dog might come out on top.”
No matter how I tried to convince him, Gonzalez was unmoved.
But then—
“My bigger concern is how this affects my family. If those rumors start, I’ll have to waste a lot of energy calming my tense siblings…”
From his next gesture, I instantly knew what he wanted.
Gonzalez paused, then gave me a meaningful smile and added:
“And honestly, the reward just doesn’t feel worth all that trouble…”
His eyes were saying:
You know what I want, right?
Ugh, not this roommate thing again...
What was so amusing about staying at my house?
But I didn’t need to understand him.
What mattered was getting him to do what I wanted.
And this was clearly a time for carrots, not sticks.
“I can’t do the roommate thing, but I’ll give you a one-night stay.”
“One-night stay?”
“The right to stay at my house for one day.”
Roommate was a hard no.
But one day—maybe I could live with that.
And if not, I’ve got backup plans.
I could just leave him at home and go check into a hotel.
That wouldn’t be breaking any promises.
Of course, the idea of Gonzalez poking around my place while I was gone didn’t thrill me...
But locking every room before leaving would solve that.
If a compromise like that would get things moving, it was worth it.
“How about it?”
“Deal.”
Gonzalez accepted the carrot, and didn’t raise any further objections.
Thanks to that, our preparations gained momentum.
And soon, it was time to begin the sting operation in earnest.
#
At the office of the Delphi Policy Institute.
Four people in black suits were waiting for us.
“Daniel McPhee, Department of Justice. This is Jim Flynn, and this gentleman is…”
“Jonathan Clarke, FBI.”
Two of the four were from the DOJ, and the other two were FBI agents leading the operation.
But one of their faces looked very familiar.
The name was definitely...
"Vanessa Cross."
Yes, Cross.
She was the FBI agent who had once pursued me quite persistently.
‘What a coincidence to see her again like this.’
—or so I thought.
But the more I considered it, the more it made perfect sense.
Even within the FBI, there would be a designated team for handling financial fraud.
So, running into her again wasn’t all that strange.
Still, I couldn’t help feeling a little weird about it.
‘The reverse of my past life.’
Back then, I was the one being chased.
Now, we were on the same side.
Anyway.
As I was thinking about all this, the people gathered at the table got straight to business.
“This is your business card.”
McPhee from the DOJ handed a card to Gonzalez.
It was neatly printed with the name of the company Gonzalez would be heading, along with his title.
“It’s a resource development and exploration company established in the Cayman Islands. You’re officially registered as its CEO. I trust you’re already familiar with the setup.”
“Yes, of course.”
EGSH was the dummy company we had created as bait.
It was established under the pretense of developing a lithium mine in the Sonora region of Mexico.
Sonora was a globally recognized lithium reserve, estimated to hold over five million tons of lithium.
Our goal was to lure John Lau into investing in this bait company, EGSH.
“There are two key objectives here. One, get him to transfer funds from his offshore account into yours. And two, get him to explicitly state his intent to deliver that money to you.”
Proving financial fraud is never easy.
Especially with someone like John Lau, who held no official position and used offshore accounts.
That’s why, instead of focusing on his past crimes—which were difficult to prove—we planned to catch him in the act.
“For now, act however you like. This is the stage where we’re still setting the trap, so we won’t be closely monitoring you just yet. Our role starts when you make contact with the target. Until then, we’re counting on you.”
#
From that point on, Gonzalez spent his days and nights in a whirlwind of activity.
By day, he played the role of EGSH’s CEO, visiting major Wall Street investment banks to raise funds and recruit investors for the initial exploration phase.
By night...
“Bring me every bottle of champagne in this hotel!”
He threw himself into his wild persona.
One night, he bought millions of dollars’ worth of champagne to build a massive champagne tower in the hotel lobby, handing out expensive drinks to passing guests.
“Remember that old game we used to play as kids... bingo, was it?”
Another night, he practically bought out an entire Cartier store, offering diamonds and emeralds as bingo prizes.
When people questioned these extravagant displays of wealth, Gonzalez would reply with confidence:
“Don’t worry! Andorra Group will be mine soon. This is nothing!”
He was fully convinced that his mining project would succeed.
Rumors spread quickly around Wall Street.
“If he’s that confident, is the project really that solid? I mean, Sonora’s risky, but...”
“But if it works out, it could be a goldmine.”
The lithium venture Gonzalez had entered was indeed promising.
Lithium is a key material for electric vehicle batteries.
With the booming EV market, the lithium industry was expected to experience explosive growth.
However—
“Commercial production in Sonora won’t be easy.”
The lithium in Sonora exists in clay form, which is more expensive to extract than typical brine or hard rock sources.
Plus, the technology for commercial-scale extraction hadn’t been fully proven yet.
“Exploration costs won’t be cheap either...”
There was a real risk of losing hundreds of millions in the early exploration phase.
If the results weren’t promising, investors could lose everything.
Of course, if the exploration succeeded, the returns would be massive.
But no one could say for sure.
“High risk, high reward.”
Still, Gonzalez seemed completely unbothered by external skepticism.
Even as he flaunted his wealth and confidence to an excessive degree.
Some investors kept their distance, wary of his lack of restraint.
But others took it as a good sign.
“If he’s that confident, there’s probably a reason behind it, right?”
Gonzalez’s family was the Andorra Group.
A well-known mining conglomerate.
If the third son of such a family was this sure of success, there was bound to be something to it.
‘Feels like something’s definitely going on...’
They couldn’t tell what, but it seemed too tempting to ignore.
So many investors approached with cautious inquiries.
However—
Gonzalez never accepted any actual investment money.
This was, after all, a setup.
The point wasn’t to attract a bunch of investors.
The whole purpose of this bait company was to reel in a single target.
And finally, after several weeks—
All our efforts bore fruit.
“John Lau says he wants to meet.”
***
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