RIO and Kate Ferdinand may be the most high profile Brits to quit Dubai – but they definitely won’t be the last, a top businessman told The Sun.
Wolfgang Douglas – a UK investor and former Dubai resident – says his phone is “red hot” with people trying to get their money out of the Gulf State.
And he says it is not just the war – which has seen the influencer capital of the world besieged by missiles – that is driving away Brits.
It comes as England and Manchester United legend Rio and his wife Kate fled their £6.5million mansion – moving to Portugal.
Wolfgang told The Sun: “I am not surprised to see celebrities like [Rio & Kate] fleeing Dubai with their children.
“The dream of Dubai was sold on safety which is now undeniably not true.
“They sold it on being the Switzerland of the Middle East – untouched by the conflicts around them.
“Sadly, they now find themselves under attack and in the middle of a tinderbox.”
Dubai is known as the playground of the ultra rich – with social-media loving influencers flouting their lives with supercars, yachts and sun-drenched bikini snaps.
Some 240,000 Brit expats have moved out to the playground city – lured by the promise of a lavish lifestyle and low tax.
Expats make up between 85 and 90 per cent of Dubai’s population.
But beneath the glitzy exterior, Wolfgang – who runs The Wolf MBA business academy – says people are now waking up to the city’s dark side.
He claims that it is not just influencers desperate to return to London, but also private investors and ultra-wealthy families.
And he knows how bad things can get in the city – with him having to spend millions of pounds fighting to get his dad Albert freed from a Dubai jail after he was unjustly banged up for a crime he didn’t commit.
Wolfgang told The Sun those “seduced” by the allure of the city are fleeing – but the money is escaping even quicker, with the city now facing a “potentially catastrophic exodus”.
He said: “The Iran war has crashed the Gulf dream, and the real story isn’t expats fleeing Dubai, but how the money is escaping even faster.
“Working discreetly as an intermediary for the private investment houses or family offices of the ultra-wealthy, my phone has been red hot with thousands of calls and messages since late February.”
He went on: “People are threatened or even imprisoned for speaking out or filming drone strikes, but while they weigh options and chase plane tickets, the smart money has been moving – extremely fast.
“Influencers continue posting luxury content while insisting everything is normal, but there are echoes of the Titanic here.”
Wolfgang works in “asset liquidation” – essentially converting assets into cash.
He says he is helping connecting the wealthy with people who can flog property and cars so they can get out of the Gulf.
Wolfgang said one family – who he cannot name – has asked him to help redirect some £250million worth of investments out the region, and instead they are looking at opportunities in London.
Many Gulf natives kept their assets in the West, particularly London while they convinced Brits to move their over to the Middle East.
Wolfgang said: “Fact is, Dubai sold a lie via public and social media, actively undermining confidence in London and the wider UK by highlighting crime, high taxes and political instability, while trumpeting the Gulf as a glamorous tax-free sanctuary for wealth.”
He went on: “While telling the world London is unsafe, many native Gulf investors kept their wealth here all along and continued to live and operate out of Mayfair, Belgravia and Knightsbridge, even as their media was persuading Brits to sell up and ‘join them’ in the Gulf.”
“So, property prices in parts of central London fell 20-30 per cent in recent years.
“And who bought those properties?
“The very people who told Brits to sell yet never left their own London mansions.”
Wolfgang added: “So, after years of being battered by negative narratives, this could be the moment capital begins flowing back into London.
“You can build the tallest skyscrapers in the world, shout about luxury and tax-free wealth and claim accolades like having the world’s only seven-star hotel, but when uncertainty strikes, capital returns to long-established safe institutions.”
And he warned influencers simply “can’t admit the truth” and are continuing to sell the “Gulf mirage”.
Wolfgang has witnessed first hand the disturbing side of Dubai as his dad Albert was banged up in a disgusting prison .
Businessman Albert says the four-year ordeal in a hellhole Dubai jail stripped him of any shred of dignity and left him “feeling less than nothing”.
He had been arrested for financial fraud after simply putting his signature to a piece of paper related to son Wolfgang, who also ran a company in the United Arab Emirates.
He claims he witnessed suicides and prisoners being raped, rubbed shoulders with killers, and survived on meagre portions of rice and weak soup.
Before his arrest, he enjoyed a life of luxury, driving a Rolls-Royce and living in a £6million mansion on Palm Jumeirah island, where celebrities including David and Victoria Beckham and Brad Pitt own villas.
He made his fortune by cornering the market in wooden flooring in the Gulf after moving 4,500 miles from where to Dubai in 1998.
Son Wolfgang followed him out in 2008 to set up his own flooring firm, Timberwolf.
He returned to the UK full time in 2019.