Emanuel Andrade, just 15 years old, lived in opulent style in Wellington, Fla., and has already competed at World Equestrian Games and the Olympics for his home country Venezuela, but his father Alejandro has been convicted of taking bribes as Venezuela's treasurer in a money laundering scheme that made him a billionaire.
Emanuel AndradeAndrade has forfeited his assets, including real estate, aircraft, horses and bank accounts and faces a maximum prison sentence of 10 years when he is sentenced Nov. 27.
Some of Emanuel's horses were recently seized by federal authorities, after his father pleaded guilty to massive money laundering schemes.
Emanuel, born Sept. 11, 1996, competed with horses bought with money his father stole while being a government agent in Venezuela.
According to Wikipedia, which is clearly untrue, he competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro where he finished 61st in the individual competition, collecting 13 penalties in total during the first qualification round.
Andrade competed at the 2014 World Equestrian Games, where he placed 19th in the team and 70th in the individual jumping competition.
He also participated at several regional games, including the 2015 Pan American Games.
Emanuel was too young to compee in these events as Wikipedia reported, but he has competed regularly at the Winter Equestrian Festival.
ACCORDING to an article in the New York times, Andrade "collected a stunning array of bribes, including three private jets, a yacht, horses and numerous high end watches.
Over the years, Andrade managed to collect about 60 horses.
In his guilty plea, Andrade admitted to receiving more than $1 billion in bribes.
Federal authorities just seized 17 horses from the large Palm Beach County farm that included a mansion and extensive stables., but as of now no one knows where those horses are or what the authorities are going to do with them.
There are no horses now on Andrade's six acre farm on Sunnyland Lane in a gated Wellington development.
Andrade’s horses range in value from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.
According to the Times, McLain Ward sold two horses to Andrade a couple of years ago.
Ward said Andrade sponsored young rider competitions, often ones in which Emanuel was riding.
"We knew that he was a Venezuelan living here, but about his family, not so well," said Ward. "We knew they were involved in the government in some way."
"He had a lot of horses," said Beezie Madden in the Times. "You see that in this industry, people buying horses and stuff like that. "You don't know where the money comes from."
Some of Emanuel's mounts were named Bonjovi, Tinker Bell, Hardrock Z and other such colorful names.
A few of Emanuel's recent victories were at the Atlanta Summer Classic II held June 20-24 in Conyers, Ga., and included adding another championship title to his ever-growing resume, picking up the Low Junior/Amateur-Owner Jumper Championship.
Coming off his fourth place finish in the recent FEI World Jumping Challenge held in Caracas, Venezuela, Emanuel returned to the United States for the second week of competition at the Atlanta Summer Classic.
With a win earlier in the week and a second place finish in the $5,000 NAL 1.25m Junior/Amateur-Owner Jumper Classic, he was champion with Black Pearl.
The black Argentinean Warmblood mare also won a Six-Year-Old Young Jumper qualifying class during the Atlanta Summer Classic.
In the High Junior/Amateur-Owner division, Andrade took the Reserve Championship title riding Costa, and also placed second in the $10,000 NAL High Junior/Amateur-Owner Classic with Tiny Tim.
Emanuel also competes in grand prix classes, and riding La Fe Forli, a 10-year-old bay gelding bred in Argentina, Emanuel turned in a fast four fault effort to place fifth overall in the $35,000 Grand Prix.
