Meet Maurizio Mian, the Mastermind Behind the World's Richest Dog Hoax
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At one point in human history, the world believed one of the wealthiest beings living was a dog. Before Taylor Swift's cat Olivia Benson pounced around with a $97 million net worth, it was believed a German shepherd named Gunther had inherited a mammoth fortune of $80 million. That number has ballooned to over $400 million, and Netflix's new docuseries Gunther's Millions shows how one man was the mastermind behind global deception.
As the ridiculous story goes: After the death of German Countess Karlotta Leibenstein in 1992, her canine companion Gunther III inherited her $80 million fortune at her request because the countess's son Gunther—her only child— committed suicide earlier. In order to make sure Gunther was always the beneficiary of wealth she and her husband generated from a pharmaceutical company, the Gunther Trust was created to pass the money down to each successive dog born in the Gunther bloodline. The dog paraded around in the docuseries is Gunther VI, and he's inherited more than enough money to buy a country.
Since Gunther's reported financial windfall in the early '90s, the Gunther dogs have had their own PR team, spokesperson, personal chefs, private plane, yacht, and Madonna's old Miami mansion. He had 27 employees, including a faux music group of unrealistically gorgeous young people called The Burgundians, who lived with him as long as they did whatever Gunther wanted. If Gunther wanted a rare $1.1 million white truffle, he got it. If Gunther wanted luxury cars he anatomically couldn't operate, they were his. As outrageous as it sounds, it was all true...ish.
Through testimonials of virtually everyone who helped sustain the Gunther brand for the last three decades, Gunther's Millions uncovers the truth you probably suspected from the minute you clicked on this article: It was all a hoax. The mastermind behind it was the one man Gunther was always seen with: Maurizio Mian.
Who is Maurizio Mian?
Mian is heir to the Italian pharmaceutical company Istituto Gentili, which his late mother, Maria Gabriella Gentili, helped run. He and his family concocted the Gunther hoax as a glorified tax shelter to keep their millions of dollars away from the Italian government. As Mian explains in the doc, his mother funneled their funds through a bank in a tax-friendly country, Liechtenstein, that would then be routed to a close family friend in Germany. Once the family friend fell ill, Mian had the deviously cost-effective idea to continue the tax evasion scheme by leaving the money in a trust for a dog.
Gunther wasn't the loyal companion of a mega-rich German countess. It was the dog of Mian's ex-girlfriend, a dog Mian had an instant connection to and described in the doc as his "very, very, very best friend." In the doc, Mian turns from eccentric to downright creepy when it's revealed The Burgundian music group was a science experiment carried out at the wishes of the late countess who, inspired by her son's suicide, wanted to uncover the secret behind happiness. Everything the group members did in the Miami mansion was recorded and reported back to Mian, including their sexual encounters with one another that Mian's "research team" coaxed them into often having.
Mian was addicted to finding some elusive formula for happiness, an addiction fueled by his admitted bouts with depression. He opened a nightclub in Italy to recruit more people for his studies. He purchased a men's soccer team and appointed two porn stars to be his spokespeople and "pawns in this provocative game" to get the world to talk about sex more scientifically, according to him in the doc. In the end, Mian has little to no remorse for his actions, which is to be expected from a man who tried to claim to the media Gunther fathered a child he had with his ex-wife Christina Mian to create some twisted new race of humans.
Where is Maurizio Mian Now?
At the end of the doc, Mian admits continuing the Gunther ruse to help him cope with his depression. But he also knew it was time to pivot. He sold Gunther's Miami mansion for $29 million in January 2022. Mian's current whereabouts are somewhat of a mystery, as he's kept a low profile for years until the revelatory docuseries.
While taking in a picturesque sunset with his first wife, Carla Riccitelli, in the Bahamas, the pair discuss purchasing an island Carla describes as one "where animals can live in total freedom." Even though we may not know where Mian is now, he teased a return of Gunther to the public eye, which would explain why he decided to make a documentary tearing away the facade for a new myth to take its place possibly.
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