Original subtitles

In this episode of American Greed, DePaul Wanakawati enjoys a life of

thanks to his medical glove importing empire.

Now he wants to go bigger, hiring American workers.

175 jobs.

It was like almost the answer to our prayers.

But his enterprise is built on false promises and propped up by an

$230 million of other people's money.

He was a skilled manipulator and a gifted con man, and he would use

rip anything from the headlines to kind of add to his story. And nothing will

stop his compulsion for cash.

Not an FBI raid, not even a jail cell.

The man was still a financial danger when he was locked up in jail.

But when everything looks so real, could the biggest lie he's telling be the one

he tells himself?

If some of the truth came out just as the bad thing that I did, I might have

a better chance.

I think he believed his own BS and somehow felt this was all going to have

happy ending.

you have a prepaid call from DePaul Wanakawati, an inmate at Sacramento

Jail. Hi, Mom.

Hi, DePaul. I'm doing fine.

I got the 20 years, but I only have to serve 10.

On the day of his sentencing for one of the biggest cons Sacramento has ever

seen, DePaul Wanakawati cannot stop lying.

Not even to his elderly mother.

The fact is, he'll be locked up for a minimum of 17 years.

I got only 10 years, okay?

At the end of the day, that's better than nothing.

I kept telling you, even though it says 20 years, I only go for 10 years.

How many times do you want me to tell you that?

Earlier this afternoon, he faced a courtroom of victims.

Their tales of heartache and struggle are now being widely reported.

I did what I had to do.

I did what I had to do.

Monica Waddy comes to the U .S. in the late 1960s in a tale that begins more

American dream than American greed.

And his story was he grew up poor in Sri Lanka, dirt floors,

and through tennis was able to overcome his impoverished

childhood, get a scholarship to an American college.

He comes to the U .S. as a junior tennis champion from Sri Lanka, playing on the

team at Georgia Southern University.

After college, he takes a trip west and falls in love with Sacramento,

California.

When he initially came to Sacramento, he was working as a pro, a tennis pro. But

on the side, he had a business, and that was actually selling latex gloves,

rubber gloves, to various tattoo shops, dentists. And, yeah, he did that out of

the back of his car.

In 1988, Wanakawati and his American wife Betsy found International

Manufacturing Group, a medical supply company.

IMG imports medical gloves from Malaysia.

and sometimes goes by the brand name Rely Aid.

Dr. James Oates is a retired dentist who lives in Paso Robles, California.

He builds his practice over many years in suburban Sacramento.

Dr. Oates meets DePaul Wanakawati in the late 1990s when he begins purchasing

supplies from him.

He was an exhibitor at the California Dental Association's scientific

and seeing him in that venue gave credibility to his product

line. But Wanakawati claims his biggest moneymaker isn't retail customers like

Oates. It's government deals.

The most lucrative, he says, is his contract with the U .S. Department of

Veterans Affairs.

He indicated to investors that because of his unique position of being a

minority -type business, he had access to government contracts upwards to

$150 million per year.

However, Wanakawati has a cash flow problem.

He says the factories in Asia need a guarantee of payment, but the VA won't

him until he delivers.

In essence...

He needs collateral for his orders.

So Wanakawati turns to friends and clients to help him import shipping

containers of gloves from Malaysia.

Although they often consider themselves investors, they are actually private

lenders.

DePaul's explanation as to why he needed my money versus a bank was that the

bank interest rates on very short -term high money, loans was

prohibited. Mr. Wanakawati represented to investors that he earned 30 to 40

percent profit on his government contracts.

From that, he told investors that they could receive a share of those profits

anywhere from 10 to upwards and more than 20 percent.

Wanakawati encourages his lenders to roll their investments.

When rolling, investors like Oates still receive their interest payments, but

leave their principal with him to help finance the next shipping container from

Malaysia. Over the years, Dr. Oates rolls several of his loans and says he

Wanakawati nearly $1 million.

Oates says his interest payments come like clockwork and says sometimes

Wanakawati even pays him back big chunks of principal early.

occasionally DePaul would say, I don't need that glove investment, so I'll

you a check. So it added a degree of confidence when he would write me a

to repay my investment.

Wanakawati keeps an open -door policy with his private lenders.

There were numerous investors who we spoke to who actually went down to his

business and wanted to see, feel, and touch the facility.

I could talk to his secretary.

I could see the warehouse full of product.

I was proud to be a part of it.

What's more, many of Wanakawati's lenders consider him a close personal

He would give me tickets to the Kings games in Sacramento, and we just had a

really good, close relationship. Every Christmas, we would exchange Christmas

baskets. He was the kind of guy who would remember if you're...

If you had kids, you'd remember your kids' names. You'd know what sports they

played. He has this gigantic smile.

He is a hugger. He wants to get to know you and shake your hand as soon as you

come into the room.

And by the mid -2000s, Wanakawati has reason to smile.

He's got a hit product on his hands, the Aloe Touch Fitted Glove. I feel less

fatigue in my hands when I use them, and my hands feel smoother. It's a great

combination.

Business seems so good that before long, Wanakawati decides to take it to the

next level.

Eventually, he started telling investors, we'll cut out the middleman.

out the manufacturer. Let's bring manufacturing to California.

Let's put it here where we can control it and make an even greater profit.

Next on American Greed.

Wanakawati brings hope to a town on hard times with a pitch of creating 175

new jobs.

It was like almost the answer to our prayer that he, you know, was talking

that he would use local people.

We all wake up and this nightmare will be just a total dream.

But unfortunately, it's not.

It's gonna be a reality until it gets done, you know?

But you gotta keep your hope alive. If you don't keep hope alive, then

gonna happen, you know?

Forty miles north of Sacramento,

DePaul Wanakawati purchases a shuttered garage door factory in Yuba County.

It's located in the small town of Olivehurst, home to about 14 ,000

including Mary Jane Griego.

Griego owns the local gathering spot, Duke's Diner.

She's lived here since childhood and says that back then, Olivehurst had a

thriving economy.

We had everything here. You know, we had, you know, the canneries. It was all

based around ag and natural resources. We had the trailer factories. We had the

lumber mills.

That started to vanish around the 70s.

Then two major floods devastate the town in the 80s and 90s.

And since that time, Olivehurst has struggled to recover.

In our mall, we have the mall here in the South County.

57 very prosperous businesses.

Not one of them came back. They all left.

Those opportunities that were there left with them.

Griego, who also works as a Yuba County supervisor, meets with Wanakawati and

other county officials in early 2012.

He shares his plans to turn the old facility into a booming new medical

factory. It was like almost the answer to our prayers, you know, when we look

the amount of unemployment that we have in this community, that he, you know,

was talking about the number of people that would be working and that he would

use local people.

That kind of gets you going, you know, you think, oh my goodness, finally.

He tells Yuba County the plant will cost $30 million and bring 175 new

jobs.

He asks county leaders to keep the project quiet at first.

But when word gets out in Olivehurst, the locals' hopes soar.

People were really needing jobs.

So they come into the restaurant and they say, you know, my brother needs a

or my husband needs a job or my son needs a job. Can you put in a good word

me? It was exciting to say, yeah, I would put a good word in for you.

Wanakawati looks for funding from commercial lenders.

He gets a $4 .5 million line of credit from San Jose -based Bridge Bank and

nearly $7 million from Key Equipment Finance.

Wanakawati also turns once again to private lenders, people like Ron Ashley,

has done well as a cosmetic dentist.

He had products. He gave me a few samples.

Real stuff.

You know, as a dentist, I bought lots of latex gloves, but had begun to buy

nitrile.

And that's when he started telling me about this other venture that was his

love of life, was that he wanted to create the first nitrile glove factory

the United States.

Ashley understands having a passion project.

He owns apartments across the West, having invested his dental income into

estate. where he makes his fortune.

For 20 years, from 88 to 08, I did both the apartment business and also

dentistry. My wife and I started with one complex, and now we've grown it to

where we're about 4 ,000 units.

As a dentist with a latex allergy himself,

Ashley is intrigued by the project.

Wanakawati invites him to Olivehurst.

I went to the factory with him. He had plans, kind of like a flow chart of how

it was going to be built and what the machinery looked like and how it would

work. It was very impressive.

There had been a lot of recent electrical work done with a lot of heavy

power cables and conduits and all that kind of stuff that was obviously fresh

and new.

Ashley decides to lend Wanakawati money to purchase and ship the assembly line

equipment. He had all the things down pat that you need to convince somebody

that you're for real. He had a real business location, some real business

records, real contract with the VA.

Before long, Ashley decides to become a partner.

I had sold some apartments, and when I made a decision to invest some

money in the glove factory,

It was a very serious investment. When I started initially, I bought 10%, and I

finally made my way up to 50%. The Ashleys make a series of investments and

loans totaling $22 million, even borrowing some of it to help Wanakawati.

over six months, a fast friendship forms.

He's extremely friendly and acts very sincere.

We play tennis together. We vacation as he and his wife vacation with me and my

wife.

By 2013, DePaul Wanakawati appears as successful as ever.

He lives in a comfortable middle -class home, owns numerous properties around

Sacramento, and has donated at least $25 ,000 to his daughter's private Catholic

high school.

He owns a private jet and three vacation homes, including this $3 million house

in Hawaii.

And he also owns his city's professional tennis team, Sacramento Capitals.

I think there was a personal connection to the tennis team, but it's also part

of the way he would bring people around.

Another thing he would do... I think, to earn trust and demonstrate credibility

to the individual investors.

If you would take him to Hawaii for an all expenses paid trip for a week to his

house in Hawaii, he would fly them out there on his private jet. And people

start to believe that, yeah, this guy is who he claims to be.

But cracks are beginning to show in his warm, confident facade.

Next on American Greed, late payments and a lawsuit.

lead to a federal investigation.

They were peppering me with questions, sucking information out of me. It was

pretty intense.

And this morning when I came down to get breakfast, one guy said, can I call you

Mr. Mogul?

Mr. Mogul.

Can I call you Mr. Mogul?

He said you're constantly on the news.

Constantly on the news.

Sacramento

attorney

Ian Craig represents two of DePaul Wanakawati's largest lenders.

They are prominent home builders who, over several years, lend their friend

than $20 million each.

As their attorney, Craig encourages his clients to formalize their agreements

with Wanakawati.

When I would put documents in front of Mr. Wanakawati, the reluctance to sign

those agreements caused me concern.

My clients come from a different generation, a generation in which a man

good as his word.

They were less concerned than I was.

If they felt comfortable with him, and, you know, I couldn't stand in their way.

In early 2013 comes the moment Craig fears.

Wanakwadi is several months late in making interest payments to his clients.

We started writing letters to Mr. Wanakwadi.

And Mr.

Wanakwadi then would, instead of dealing with me, he would go directly to my

clients and give them, for instance, a letter from the VA saying, hey, my

payment terms have changed.

Well, I used to get paid by the VA in 30 to 60 days. Now it's 90 to 120 days.

Wanakwadi's excuse placates the clients.

But Ian Craig is still suspicious.

Then in the summer of 2013,

Bridge Bank sends one of his clients a subpoena to testify in a deposition.

Bridge Bank is suing DePaul Wanakawati, accusing him of defaulting on his $4 .5

million line of credit. It doesn't make sense to Craig.

If Wanakawati has a contract with the Department of Veterans Affairs worth

than $100 million, he should be able to pay back $4 .5 million.

Alarmed, he meets with a private investigator.

an ex -FBI agent who says he'll reach out to the Bureau.

The next day, Ian Craig gets a call.

Don't tell your clients. Don't tell anyone. We just need you to show up. We

you to bring the documents that you have that are relevant to this, and we're

going to sit down and talk about this.

The following day, he sits down with FBI Special Agent Paul Artley and IRS

Criminal Investigation Special Agent Stephen Delaney.

They were peppering me with questions, sucking information out of me. And I was

in that office for probably five or six hours.

And it was pretty intense.

Agents Artley and Delaney begin by contacting the Department of Veterans

Affairs.

We have two individuals that haven't been paid millions of dollars in

over the last couple of months.

That's all we know at that point. He's shown them a VA contract for hundreds of

millions of dollars.

Well, we have to then try to figure out with the VA if that contract actually

exists. And if it does exist, does it exist for $125 million?

The feds learned he has a contract, all right.

They reviewed it and then told me that, in fact, it was a $25 ,000 per year

contract. $25 ,000 a year is just 0 .02 % of the

$125 million he has shown his lenders.

And remember Wanakawati's excuse that the VA changed its payment terms?

Investigators discovered that Wanakawati's letter from the VA...

is signed by a former employee.

In fact, that individual had worked for the VA, but had worked there five years

earlier. So in effect, it was a fraudulent letter that he was providing

investors.

And the deceit involving Veterans Affairs doesn't stop there.

Back in 2011, to secure his $4 .5 million line of credit from Bridge Bank,

Wanakawati sets up a conference call.

with his contact at the VA.

At the time, the voice on the line says Wanakawati is a valued vendor.

Bridge Bank approves the financing.

But in 2013, when the agents run the rep's name by the VA, they've never

of him.

Is anything this man says true?

Investigators strongly suspect Wanakawati is running a scam.

likely a pyramid scheme.

They know he's been lying to his lenders.

Now they need it on the record.

Next on American Greed, setting a trap.

I never could have imagined in a million years that I'd be working for the feds

as a confidential informant.

pushing it. He says there's a lot of stuff that these guys are not talking

about. They're just hung up on this VA contract.

He said, Paul, you have other businesses going on. It's crazy. He says, I don't

get this.

Sacramento, California, autumn 2013.

FBI and IRS agents have been digging deep into DePaul Wanakawati's business,

International Manufacturing Group, or IMG.

Although he does import medical gloves from overseas, the feds suspect it has

largely become a charade to convince lenders to keep coughing up cash.

Then he pays them back, using other lenders' money. A classic, if well

-disguised, con.

He was able to mask the underlying scheme through a legitimate business

enterprise. They need to catch Wanakawati in his own web of lies.

So they asked Ian Craig, the attorney for two of his largest investors, to

a wire.

I felt that he had committed fraud on my client.

I did not like this person, but I had to pretend and fake a relationship

with him.

Essentially, I had the con, the con man.

Craig convinces Wanakawati to put him in touch with his contact at the

Department of Veterans Affairs.

I said, hi, Mr. Williams.

What's your first name?

Um, Fran.

Okay, Fran Williams. Where are you calling from?

Um, Langley, Virginia.

I thought to myself, I don't think Langley, Virginia is where the...

I thought that was the CIA headquarters.

And I started asking him some fairly pointed questions. How much is the

contract? He recites $100 to $150 million.

What's going on with the payment terms?

We've just been delayed a little bit, whatever his excuse was.

When I started pressing him for a little bit more, all of a sudden, he had to

get off the phone.

And some of those key things that we needed were representations made by Mr.

Wanakowati in a conversation so that we could have that evidence.

He did a fabulous job.

As the criminal investigation heats up, Wanakowati's pro tennis team, the

Sacramento Capitals, announces a move to Las Vegas.

The FBI and IRS need to nail Wanakowati before he skips town, too.

but they'll need more evidence before they can arrest him.

On February 12, 2014, at 6 a .m., with cert warrants in hand, they

strike, raiding his home, business, and the Olivehurst facility.

At the IMG warehouse in West Sacramento, an employee admits to playing the so

-called... VA rep on the bogus conference call with Bridge Bank.

He confesses that Wanakawati had bribed him with a hundred bucks and a bottle of

wine.

He verified that, yeah, DePaul had handed him a script that morning, and

both got on a conference call.

Because I was a new employee, I just wanted to make my boss happy.

He had no clue what he was involved with, and when the agents described...

What they were investigating, the guy just went white. I mean, just almost,

know, he was stunned.

Agent Delaney also corners Wanakawati's chief financial officer.

He wants to see the books on the supposed VA contract.

She tells him she knows nothing about the VA business because Wanakawati alone

manages that division.

He keeps its books and money separate from the rest of the company.

She never sees an invoice and doesn't even know where its bank account is

She accounts for the VA business each month by simply writing down whatever

numbers Wanakowati tells her to.

And then she adds that to the overall company income statement.

The way it's handled, you won't have any paperwork. There's no expenses

associated with it. I give you the entries every month. You post them.

She asks no questions.

But she has been keeping track of those manual income entries, which she turns

over to the IRS agent.

I think we could go back to around 2002. You start to see the financial

statements being adjusted upward.

By the time we finish 2013,

he's up in the $150 to $175 million in sales.

Over in Wanakawati's South Sacramento home, FBI Special Agent Paul Artley and

his team find a treasure trove of fraudulent documents.

Mr. Wanakawati did the old -fashioned cut -and -paste job. So we found

statements that were cut -and -pasted. We found invoices. We found all manner

documents. I don't think that Paul Wanakawati ever used a computer.

Okay, and here he is running one of the largest Ponzi schemes we've ever seen in

the Eastern District of California, and he's using a photocopy machine and a

pair of scissors to cut and paste documents and put them together, and

working. You get a call from Paul, and he's saying, we found a lot, because

tracking with everything that we're seeing from our victims, from their

statements, and I'm almost thinking it can't be, it doesn't get any better than

this.

Meanwhile, the Olivehurst manufacturing facility astounds for the opposite

reason.

The only thing inside the whole factory was an eyewash machine.

That was it. It was empty other than that.

Mr. Wanakwadi told others that he had actually purchased some equipment in

to put into the factory and provided invoices and other documents

that. But in fact, he didn't purchase any equipment.

The factory was a shell.

Next on American Greed.

From inside a Sacramento County jail, he's on the phone talking with people

attempting to salvage the deal.

And his brazen behavior continues inside the courtroom.

And he starts reading this letter and people's jaws are dropping.

Hear more about becoming an FBI informant at AmericanGreed .CNBC .com.

Feeling greedy?

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We'll be right back.

Why are you prolonging this?

It's so painful.

I just want it to be over.

I understand that. But if I can get a reduced time, don't you think that's the

best?

He's going for a longer time. He's not going to help anybody.

In Sacramento, the feds are moving as fast as they can through the evidence

they've seized from DePaul Wanakawati's home and business.

They are horrified as the victim list grows.

I thought maybe it was two, three, four, five, a handful of investors that had

been taken by this guy.

But it turns out once we got records, once we started looking through the

document that were at his house, we could see that it was going to be much,

larger.

In fact, the very same day of the raid, Wanakawati meets his investor Ron Ashley

for lunch to discuss what he says are delays at customs with the shipment of

assembly lines for the Olivehurst glove factory.

He said, Ron, I just need one final payment.

And then that's it.

And so that payment was, it's a matter of public record, it was $680 ,000.

And he said, that'll be the last we need.

The FBI had been to his house, and yet he was capable of being reasonably

friendly and straight -faced and smiling and saying, thank you, you've really

helped me accomplish something important.

Ashley believes he owns a 50 % stake in the Olivehurst operation.

In exchange for investing in lending Wanakawati the $22 million.

It's amazing what you learn after it's too late.

The glove grifter shows no signs of stopping.

So within a week, agents Artley and Delaney take him down.

When we actually arrested Mr. Wanakawati, he was very friendly, very

cordial. as if you had known him for years.

And within that, I saw how he was able to manipulate people.

Word of Wanakawati's arrest travels fast.

And within days, the dream of 175 new jobs in Oliver's appears to be

dying. It's the momentum that we were, you know, involved in that

felt so credible.

That, you know, and then to have that yanked out from underneath you, it just

makes you very cautious.

Having to explain to the community that this guy was not legitimate, that was a

tough one.

Although he's been jailed on charges of conspiracy, as well as mail wire and

bank fraud, DePaul Wanakawati isn't giving up.

Even from behind bars, he obsesses over capturing more cash.

He was on a recorded line out of the Sacramento County Jail attempting to

salvage a deal with a state -run Chinese corporation.

Months before, they had kind of finalized the deal, signed paperwork,

Chinese corporation was going to give Wanakawati roughly $40 million.

Our estimation was that money would have immediately gone out to pay various

investors that were now asking for money.

The man was still a financial danger when he was locked up in jail.

In March 2014,

DePaul Wanakawati is indicted on charges of bank fraud and making false

statements to a financial institution.

He pleads not guilty.

But after learning all the evidence the government has on him, He changes his

mind and cuts a deal.

He pleads guilty to one count of wire fraud.

Wanakwadi's sentencing is August 7, 2014, at the federal courthouse in

Sacramento.

It was essentially standing room only.

There were a number of victims, and they made up the bulk of the people in the

courtroom.

Wanakwadi stands up in his orange jumpsuit from the county jail.

Juana Kawade interrupts the proceedings.

The judge announces, well, we have a letter here, and he starts reading this

letter, and people's jaws are dropping.

Now, Juana Kawade wants to fire his attorney. He writes, I believe he has

intimidated me into agreeing to the plea agreement.

Never in 20 years have I ever seen that. It was one last chance for him to kind

of control the situation.

So I can imagine that was incredibly difficult for the victims.

The judge apologizes as he postpones the sentencing.

These investors, they had come to just get their pound of flesh, to at least

justice done, to see him sent away for 20 years.

And the whole thing got stopped in its tracks.

Next on American Greed.

Even when he should be down for the count, Wanakawati has a few more jabs to

throw. Who cares what they write in the paper, man? They write good at the time.

If some of the truth came out, I might have had a better chance, you know?

But, you know, the truth never came out.

You know, only the bad things came out.

All the bad things I did.

November 2014.

Three months have passed, and DePaul Wanakawade's guilty plea stands.

He must now face his victims and his punishment.

God bless him. They showed up again.

There was not an empty seat in the courtroom that second time either.

Ron Ashley, the Glove Factory investor who lost nearly $22 million, addresses

the court.

And I looked at him and he would not look at me. He had his face cradled in

hands. So I said, DePaul, you are a sociopath, a person who can rationalize

constant greedy and deceitful behavior.

You have disgraced yourself and disgraced your family in the process.

You are a liar, a serial liar.

DePaul, you are the most evil person I have ever met.

You are truly a scumbag.

His new attorney reads an apology.

And then Judge Troy Nunley sentences DePaul Wanakawati to 20 years in prison,

of which he must serve a minimum of 17.

It was very quiet, very quiet.

And they let him away.

After the tone, please say your first and last name.

DePaul Wanakawati. DePaul Wanakawati.

He calls his daughter afterward and spins a tale that he can make the

magically disappear.

Hi, honey.

Hello. I got it all completed.

Sounds good. I got my 20 -year sentence.

They can't take it away. I'll tell you all the details on Saturday when I see

you, okay?

He also lies to his wife, though she is not so easily fooled.

Hi, honey.

Well, it went good.

I survived it. I survived it. I'm sure, I'm sure.

With the 20 -year term I got, I only have to spend 10 years.

And the spin continues as he calls his elderly mother.

Who cares what they write in the paper, man? They write books.

I think to some degree he believed, we all know what the word BS means, but

I think he believed his own BS and somehow felt this was all going to have

happy ending.

In January 2016,

DePaul Wanakawati sends a letter to American Greed.

He points a finger at an investor, one of Ian Craig's clients.

He writes, I was a highly paid servant for a rich man whose housing business

crashed in 2008.

He continues, American Greed should focus on who ended up with all the money

from the investors and the real facts.

And nowhere, of course, either in the plea agreement or in that apology, did

try to blame anybody else. And it's now in retrospect. But it doesn't surprise

me that he would try to blame somebody else because he is a sociopath, because

he is evil, and because he probably just can't handle the accountability of it

all. Our evidence from the investigation indicated that Mr. Wanakawati did this

all himself.

There were no other individuals involved who participated with him.

assisted him or knew of his scheme.

Perhaps the weight of his wickedness is too much to bear.

Over 12 years, he takes in more than $230 million from more than 150

and lenders.

Losses stand in excess of $100 million.

Losing $380 ,000 to DePaul is certainly a shock.

You know, I do have cash assets that are in good, solid investments, so, you

know, I'm lucky that way. I don't live an extravagant lifestyle, and so what I

have left has got to last.

The damage extends far beyond the scheme.

His pro tennis team is terminated by its league.

They never played a single match in Las Vegas.

And in Yuba County...

Olive Hurst grieves the loss of those 175 manufacturing jobs.

DePaul was such a big disappointment, but I think the idea

that he had was really good. I just think that, you know, he was there for a

different reason, but I think that maybe one day we'll have that manufacturing

here, and we'll be wise. I mean, we're always optimistically, maybe a little

bit... We're cautiously optimistic now, but we are still optimistic.

Very good. All right.

It's hard to tell with Juana Kawade. Did he ever really intend to build this

factory or didn't he? You just don't know with him. He was a skilled

and a gifted con man, and he would use anything, rip anything from the

to kind of add to his story. Every story that he told had a kernel of truth in

there. You know, yes, he did have a contract with the VA.

It was for $25 ,000, not $120 million.

And there was a facility that he had in Olivehurst, but it wasn't functional,

and there was no equipment in it.

I don't really care what anybody says, Mom.

No, no. I don't care, okay? I don't care what anybody thinks. I don't really

care, okay? I don't want to hear it, okay?

It doesn't matter.

Of the $22 million he entrusts to Wanakawati, Ron Ashley gets only $300

,000 back.

The money that I lost, my wife and I, we made that money. We started out as poor

people, too. Blue collar, definitely.

I've been pretty successful in life, but I've worked really hard for it. My wife

has been by my side. We've worked hard together.

And it's a great sense of loss.

Some people might really kill themselves in despair.

And some people might drink themselves to death in despair.

Or you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and just keep going.

And that's what I've done.

The most powerful thing any city has is its people.

Together, we'll rebuild.

Together, we'll reinvent.

Together, we'll hustle.

From executive producer LeBron James.

Cleveland Hustles. Series premiere Wednesday at 10. PNBC.

Get yours.

I'm 100 % in charge. The Prophet.

Season premiere Tuesday at 10.