In 1992, eccentric German heiress Karlotta Liebenstein left her $150 million trust to Gunther III, her beloved German Shepherd.
Now, in 2021, that lineage continues and Gunther VI, a pampered dog living in luxury, is selling one of the trust’s many homes for $31 million – or the story unfolds.
As widely reported by NPR, Forbes, and Today, the story is a cross-section of “the richest dog in the world”. The only problem? Maybe it’s all just a hoax.
Here’s What We Know: A Miami mansion at 3029 Brickell Ave., is listed for $31 million.
It belonged to pop singer Madonna until 2000 when it was acquired by a group called Gunther Corporation. They baffled them for a big reveal, and then announced the buyer: a German Shepherd named Gunther IV!
This is where the “Karlotta Liebenstein” plot comes into play. There are no records of this wonderfully wealthy heiress from prior to 1999, seven years after her presumed death. No photos are currently available of her.
“The dog Gunther hasn’t been heard from for quite some time. While it has been claimed that the whole thing is an elaborate hoax, it will be a very expensive one,” Yahoo Finance wrote in 2016. “If Gunther is a hoax, he has fooled The New York Times, The Financial Times and The BBC just to name a few.”
Although doubts continue to swirl around the truth of the entire Gunther story, the real estate team asserted in an interview that it’s all true: “He lives in Madonna’s old master bedroom, ” real estate agent Ruthie Assouline said CBS Miami. “He actually sleeps with the most magnificent view in his private Italian bed in the former bedroom of the world’s greatest pop star.”
But Gunther VI was more than just a cold bandit, they added – he started the Gunther Rescue to give back to less fortunate mutants! Only thing, this is the thing. Gunther Rescue has no web presence at all. No website, no social media of its own, no news stories about the charity work they did. The only trace of Gunther Rescue online is Gunther VI’s Instagram Account, was created in early November when the mansion was listed. On that account, there are several photos of Gunther VI with some other baby mice, captioned, “Il cane milionario e la sua Günther Rescue.”
It is “The Millionaire Dog and Its Günther Rescue” for those of you who are not fluent in Google Translate. But in a world where any cute dog with a quirky story can quickly attract thousands of followers, how does Gunther VI, “the richest dog in the world” less than 100 people, as of mid-November? And why are the captions of his posts mostly in Italian?
“This is a completely fabricated story. The broker is talking nonsense. There is no dog. Never had a dog. The owner thought it would be a fun way to rate a reality TV show. That’s it,” an anonymous source told The New York Post. “Now they have rented a dog and are filming it at home. They rented one dog 20 years ago and now they’ve hired another – it’s a scam.”
The real owner? An eccentric millionaire, but not Karlotta Liebenstein. His name is Maurizio Mian, and his fortune comes from the pharmaceutical world. “Mian once admitted to an Italian newspaper that the countess never existed,” a 2005 Tampa Bay Times article explain. Mian also admitted to the New York Post that the story is “complicated” and not what it seems.
ONE blog post from marketing expert Stefano Cigana suggests that this long-term project is somehow linked to Mian’s benefits to people’s health and well-being. An anonymous source who discussed the story with the New York Post insists it’s all about reality TV.
At the moment, it is impossible to know exactly what the truth is. The only thing I know? Mian co-wrote and produced a theme song for Gunther in the ’90s, and it was a classic ice.
