Before rising to glory, Lewis Hamilton was in a long relationship with the daughter of a Hong Kong business tycoon. But she ripped the drawback of her big bucks father’s fortune as she got detained at the London airport in front of her boyfriend in 2005.
Hamilton had met Jodia Ma at a party in London in 2003. In his book – My Story – Hamilton revealed how he fell for her soon after meeting her. He also pointed out that Ma had a difficult life as she had to cope with a lot, studying and living in England.
On top of that, she was away from her family, and in 2005 her family’s business faced a downturn in fortune. Consequently, they could not support her studying in England anymore, leaving her broke. Later in 2005, Ma was on her way back to England with Hamilton and got detained at the London airport.
Jodia Ma was boxed in a room and sent back
In November of 2005, Hamilton was returning home after a race in Macau with Ma. When they landed at the airport, the customs officers stopped her as she had only two weeks left on her visa. The officers did not let her into the country even though she explained her visa renewal plans for her studies.
In his book, Hamilton revealed that she was boxed in a room and was sent back on a flight on the same night. It took Ma 2 months to sort out the visa issues, and she came back on his birthday.
“It was a nice present, but it was only temporary as her family still needed her support, and so she returned to Hong Kong shortly after,” Hamilton revealed in his book. The young Briton also revealed that Ma’s father sponsored his race in Macau when he had a fallout with McLaren for a short while in 2004. Interestingly, the bankrupt tycoon was later allegedly found to be a $96,000,000 fraudster.
How did Jodia Ma’s fraudster father help Lewis Hamilton early in his career?
With two races in the F3 season yet to go and no backing from McLaren, Hamilton found help at his girlfriend’s house. Jodia Ma’s father, Ma Bo-Kee, was a tycoon in Hong Kong and owned Moulin Global Eyecare.
Hamilton’s girlfriend, Jodia, told him that her father would love to sponsor him in Macau, and while Hamilton could not deliver his best performance, the massive sponsorship put him on the road to stardom. However, reports reveal that Moulin was already on the road to collapse as it sponsored Hamilton in 2004.
As court cases knocked at Ma’s doors, he was accused of commercial fraud in an attempt to revive his ailing business. In doing so, the businessman was convicted of inflating the company’s revenue in 2003 by showing fake sales to non-existent clients in the US and was thus accused of $96,000,000 fraud.
