On May 22, the Las Vegas Metro Police Department arrested Jong and Neelufar Rhee on 75 charges related to a scheme to defraud victims of more than $57 million. The Rhees allegedly solicited investors via two Vegas-based businesses, Twisted Twins Motorsports, LLC, and Lusso Auto Spa, suckering them into contributing money to buy supercars on behalf of overseas customers with more money than brains.
Those overseas buyers? Entirely fictitious. The investment? Squandered on expensive toys and other lifestyle accessories. The promised $2 billion dollar return on the initial investment? Yeah, not happening.
According to police, a great deal of that money was spent on cars (along with other forms of “personal enrichment”), but not to be resold. When the Rhees were arrested, police seized multiple big-ticket vehicles, including multiple Bugatti Chirons, a Pagani Huayra and a custom, 2,500-horsepower MTI V center console boat, among others.
And if you ask people who have worked with the Rhees over the years, not one bit of it is a surprise.
“The Rhee family strikes again!”
A former contractor who worked with several of the couple’s local ventures saw the news of the arrests online last week and immediately said to himself, “The Rhee family strikes again!” We spoke to him with the stipulation that we wouldn’t publish his personal information, and he had quite a bit to say about how Jong and Neelu conducted business.
He described Jong as flashy and calculating—the kind of person who parked expensive cars in conspicuous places in hopes of luring potential clients, and occasionally marks. Sometimes, they were one and the same. He met Jong while admiring one of his personal vehicles, which had been strategically parked to attract attention. The two got to talking, and eventually Jong offered him a job doing promotional work.
“I was in between W2 jobs,” he told The Drive. He jumped at the offer.
His work took him from one Rhee family venture to the next. In addition to Twisted Twins Motorsports and Lusso Auto Spa, the couple backed a restaurant called 8 Kitchen (in Henderson, now closed) and owned various other ventures that specialized in niche markets, such as high-end home audio.
With the exception to some Pinkberry chain stores in California, each of Rhee’s ventures seemed to revolve around the theme of hooking well-off but poorly-informed clientele. Jong seemed especially adept at courting athletes, including players from the Las Vegas Golden Knights hockey team.
Big-time talk, low-budget schlock
The Rhees allegedly engaged in their share of shady sales antics, such as importing cheap knock-off Chinese wheels and mounting them on high-end cars to flip them for ridiculous markups. They also offered basic cosmetic services, such as custom vinyl wraps and window tinting, at egregious markups, and claimed to offer more robust services, such as high-end custom paint work.
But even with the high volume of work the Rhees were doing, our source found it difficult to reconcile their income with the conspicuous excess the couple displayed.
“I know that there’s a lot of margin in tint and wraps,” he found himself asking, “but like, how did this guy just buy a new Rolls-Royce?”
Weeks later, the Rolls was joined by a China Blue Mercedes-Benz G-Class, followed shortly by an S-Class in the same Manufaktur-exclusive paint.
It was at this point that Rhee’s more predatory strategies began to come to light. He shared the story of a customer who wanted to create a remote control scale model of their custom yacht. Rhee offered to do the custom paint job—for $25,000. As it turned out, he had no way to actually deliver the finished product, leaving employees to scramble at the last minute to find somebody who could paint the custom hull. Rhee ended up outsourcing the job for about $3,000. Even after allegedly pocketing $22,000 in margin, Rhee made the painter fight tooth and nail to be paid for his work.
Scummy though these strategies may be, however, there’s nothing inherently illegal about separating fools from their money.
The unraveling
Our source wasn’t aware of the depth of his employer’s shadiness, but as Rhee’s money began to dry up, he had no qualms with pushing the squeeze on to his business associates, including our source, whose paychecks eventually stopped showing up.
Based on the information coming out of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, this would have been around the same time the Rhees found themselves unable to cover their mounting bills or obligations to their supposed “investors.”
Rhee told our source time and time again that there was no problem and that the money would come. It never did.
Today, he’s sitting on receipts totaling more than $10,000. Even if the amount seems comparatively insignificant, it’s no less an indicator of how Rhee conducted business. Since sharing the news that the Rhees were arrested, several others have contacted him to say they’re also owed money.
“It’s not as much as they owe the people they ripped off to buy the Pagani,” he acknowledged. Still.
The Rhees’ broader scheme is only now coming to light, but if these charges stick, it seems likely that Las Vegas car culture will be rid of a decades-long menace.
Were you a victim of the Rhees’ investment scheme, or another of their shady ventures? Drop us a line at [email protected] or reach out to the author directly at [email protected].