Online Retail CEO Duped In Alleged $5.4-Million Mercedes-AMG One Scam

Some wealthy car enthusiasts can't resist the allure of owning a rare hypercar. Michael Mente, a Los Angeles billionaire, handed over $5.4 million to a French car dealer for a Mercedes-AMG One in 2021. A federal lawsuit filed in February alleges Mente bought a build slot from the manufacturer and later chose his custom options for the F1-inspired hypercar. However, the French car dealer had vanished.

Mente, the founder and CEO of online fashion retailer Revolve, got in contact with Colorado attorney Scott Oliver to facilitate the purchase. Oliver represented the dealer by the name of Jean-Pierre M.R. Clement, the Denver Post reported. However, this guy with the absurdly stereotypical French name wasn't real. The Department of Homeland Security informed Mente in June 2022 that the agency believed Clement was actually Texas con man Traveon Rogers. By this point, the Mercedes-AMG One has already sold out and production hadn't even started yet. Oliver said, "Rogers was quite a character. Clearly he was able to convince people and get them to pay money and defraud people out of a lot of money."

Rogers claims to have been an oil industry project manager who became a billionaire by investing early in Snapchat and starting a private equity firm. His legal history tells a much different story. He is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence for felony theft in a similar scheme in which he impersonated Aston Martin representatives and forged documents.

This isn't even the first time Rogers has attempted his Mercedes-AMG One scheme. He allegedly stole $3.19 million from another unsuspecting buyer, according to a 2023 lawsuit. Oliver facilitated the fraudulent deal as well but is only named as a defendant in the Mente case. The lawyer claims he had no knowledge of the deception.

It's easy to see why the Mercedes-AMG One was such an appealing piece of bait. The first AMG One was brought to the United States by championship-winning NASCAR team owner Rick Hendrick in 2024, according to Car and Driver. The hypercars are filled to the brim with technology from the Mercedes-AMG F1 Team, and only 275 of them were ever built. The 1,049-horsepower machine has performance that matches its exclusivity as the first production car to complete a sub-6:30 lap of the Nürburgring.

The only lesson that can be learned from scams is always to do your due diligence before making an expensive purchase. You don't have to be a billionaire to be the target of fraudsters. With the proliferation of public parking agencies creating smartphone payment apps, fraud schemes cropped up using fake QR codes to connect drivers to phishing sites to steal your financial information. For those who don't like paying for parking, there are also fake parking tickets that scammers use to do the same thing.