Billionaire's Furious Neighbors Reveal How They Busted His Private Lake Plot

Published Oct. 2 2025 12:55PM EDT

British villagers have told how they caught American billionaire Stephen Schwarzman secretly trucking in water to fill a private lake on his $110 million country estate during a drought, forcing authorities to shut the operation down.

Schwarzman, the 78-year-old Blackstone co-founder who is worth more than $40 billion, bought the 2,500-acre Conholt Park estate in Wiltshire in 2022. While local residents in Tangley, Hampshire, faced outdoor water-use bans this summer, they began noticing convoys of tankers heading to his property at night, The Wall Street Journal reported.

One resident, refrigeration consultant Lawrence Leask, told the Journal how he helped bust the clandestine operation. Leask said he staked out the road at 3 a.m. to follow a truck. He explained how he “charmed” the driver into revealing his destination.

What started as suspicion then turned into a grassroots investigation into the man who sat beside British Prime Minister Keir Starmer during the royal banquet for President Donald Trump during his U.K. state visit last month.

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