Federal agents seized the phone and laptop of billionaire Mark Walter and the phone of his top Guggenheim Investments lieutenant months before Walter announced a record-setting $12.5 billion deal to sell the Los Angeles Lakers, raising fresh questions about the financial empire behind one of sports' biggest transactions.
FBI agents took Walter's phone and laptop and the phone of Guggenheim Investments President Dina DiLorenzo on the same day in September, the New York Post reported, citing a Financial Times investigation. The seizures came as part of a federal investigation by the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan and the Securities and Exchange Commission into businesses controlled by Walter, the CEO of both Guggenheim Partners and TWG Group.
The probe centers on Guggenheim Investments' accounting for revenue tied to its private investments business. No charges have been filed against Walter or DiLorenzo. But the scope of the investigation, phone seizures, subpoenas to Walter-controlled insurance companies, and a reclassification of more than $20 billion in investments, paints a picture of a financial operation under serious federal scrutiny at the very moment its leader was cashing out of one of the most valuable sports franchises on the planet.
Walter announced the sale of the Lakers to a group led by Josh Kushner and Bob Iger in a deal valued at $12.5 billion, a record price for an NBA franchise. Walter had taken majority control of the team in 2025 after he and longtime business partner Todd Boehly purchased a 27 percent stake from AEG in 2021.
The Financial Times reported that the Lakers have "little significant exposure to Walter's insurers," suggesting the team itself may sit outside the investigation's primary focus. But the timing is hard to ignore. Walter moved to sell the crown jewel of his portfolio while federal prosecutors were picking through the books of his financial empire.
The investigation's current stage remains unclear. Prosecutors have not publicly detailed the full scope of their inquiry, and the New York Post said it had sought comment from both Guggenheim Investments and the Justice Department without receiving a response by publication.
Walter's insurance companies, Delaware Life and Clear Spring Life and Annuity, disclosed in June that they held more than $20 billion in investments in affiliated entities that had previously been classified as unaffiliated. That distinction matters. Insurance regulators require companies to disclose when policyholder money flows into entities connected to the insurer's own ownership, and misclassifying those investments can obscure risk and conflicts of interest.
Both insurers had already disclosed receiving subpoenas from the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office and the SEC. They are now seeking to sell or restructure some of their holdings, and Rob Camacho, a Blackstone veteran recruited to Walter's businesses roughly two years ago, is leading what the Financial Times described as a cleanup effort at the insurers and an effort to sell TWG assets to raise cash for them.
Guggenheim Investments responded to the Financial Times by saying its auditors "have issued unqualified opinions" for the 2024 and 2025 consolidated financial statements of a subsidiary that owns Guggenheim Private Investments. An unqualified opinion is the cleanest grade an auditor can give, it means the financial statements are presented fairly, in the auditor's judgment. But an auditor's sign-off does not foreclose a federal investigation, and the seizure of phones and laptops from a company's top two executives signals prosecutors believe those devices may contain evidence relevant to their probe.
This is not the first time Walter's financial empire has drawn federal attention. In 2015, Guggenheim Partners Investment Management paid $20 million to settle SEC charges that included failing to disclose a $50 million loan made by an advisory client to an unnamed senior Guggenheim executive, along with improper fees and compliance failures. The SEC did not identify Walter as the executive who received the loan.
Three years later, in 2018, the SEC opened a separate investigation into transactions involving an $85 million Malibu property co-owned by Walter and other dealings involving a firm run by former Guggenheim managers. That probe closed in 2019 without a penalty, according to Forbes.
Walter founded Guggenheim in 1999 by combining his investment firm with an operation managing part of the Guggenheim family fortune. The firm grew into a $260 billion asset-management operation. DiLorenzo, who helped build Guggenheim's private investments business, worked at the company for more than two decades and rose through the ranks with Walter as a key ally. She was named co-president in 2021.
Now both of them have had their devices seized by the FBI. The federal government does not take that step lightly. Agents need a judge to sign off on a warrant, and they must show probable cause that the devices contain evidence of a crime.
The open questions are substantial. What exactly did Guggenheim's accounting for its private investments revenue look like before prosecutors started asking? Why were more than $20 billion in affiliated investments classified as unaffiliated for an unknown period of time? What stage has the investigation reached, and does the Lakers sale have any connection to the financial pressures building around Walter's insurance holdings?
None of those questions have public answers yet. Walter has not been charged. DiLorenzo has not been charged. The investigation may ultimately produce nothing. But the pattern, a 2015 settlement over undisclosed loans and compliance failures, a 2018 probe into a Malibu real-estate deal, and now phone seizures and a reclassification of $20 billion in insurance investments, describes a financial empire that has repeatedly attracted the attention of federal regulators and prosecutors over the span of a decade.
And in the middle of the latest and most aggressive round of scrutiny, Walter found a buyer willing to pay a record $12.5 billion for his basketball team.
When the feds come for your phone and your laptop, most people call a lawyer. Walter called a broker.
