Wealth watch

Dallas-Fort Worth leads global surge in residents who are this rich

Millionaires are flocking to places like Southlake.

Photo courtesy of Engel & Völkers Dallas Southlake via Estately.com

The rich appear to be getting richer in Dallas-Fort Worth. A new report shows that from 2018 to 2019, DFW saw the biggest jump in people with a net worth of $5 million to $30 million among any of the world’s top hubs for millionaires.

In that one-year period, the number of DFW residents in the very-high-net-worth category — defined as $5 million to $30 million — grew 17.5 percent, according to the report, released February 12 by data provider Wealth-X LLC.

As of 2019, DFW was home to an estimated 33,350 people worth $5 million to $30 million, the report says. That’s slightly more people than the current population of Southlake.

According to a 2019 survey by financial services provider Charles Schwab, Dallas-Fort Worth residents think it takes an average net worth of $2.1 million to be considered wealthy in North Texas. More than half of DFW residents believe they’ll reach the “wealthy” threshold at some point in their lives — the future Alice Waltons, Jerry Joneses, and Mark Cubans of DFW.

In 2018, per-capita personal income in DFW totaled $55,886, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. That’s a little over one percent of the lowest rung ($5 million) on the very-high-net-worth ladder.

Of the five other U.S. metro areas among the world’s top 10 regions for people worth $5 million to $30 million, San Francisco experienced a 17.4 percent year-to-year spike in this segment of the rich, followed by New York City (16.9 percent), Los Angeles (16.8 percent), Chicago (16.7 percent) and Washington, D.C. (16.5 percent).

Here’s the Wealth-X ranking of the top 10 global regions for the population of very-high-net-worth individuals:

New York City
Tokyo
Hong Kong
Los Angeles
London
Paris
Chicago
San Francisco
Washington, D.C.
Dallas-Fort Worth

Around the world, the number of people with a net worth of $5 million to $30 million rose more than 10 percent from 2018 to 2019, according to Wealth-X. Their combined net worth also climbed more than 10 percent, to $26.6 trillion. The majority of these wealthy people are self-made millionaires.

lists rankings

Death Penalty

Tarrant County man gets death for murder of convenience store owner

Tarrant County Sheriff's Office

Christopher Turner

A man received the death penalty for his 2020 cold-blooded execution of a convenience store owner.

According to a release from the office of Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney Phil Sorrells, a Tarrant County jury sentenced Christopher Karon Turner, 48, to death on November 20 for executing convenience store owner Anwar Ali during a robbery. Tarrant County Assistant District Attorneys Charles Boulware and Allenna Bangs represented the state.

On March 27, 2020, at around 6:15 am, Turner, a convicted felon, wore a surgical mask and a glove and entered the Super Big Country Mart in an unincorporated area of Tarrant County south of Fort Worth. There, he held a gun to the back of Anwar Ali, the 62-year-old store owner, and walked him through the store.

Ali did everything Turner demanded, including opening the cash register to give him money. And yet Turner forced Ali into the bathroom and onto his knees, and shot him in the neck. Ali was discovered, dead in the bathroom, about an hour later.

Turner fled the store in Ali's Toyota minivan with the money from the register and Ali's wallet. In the van, he found more than $50,000 cash in a black bag. Over the next few days, Turner went on a shopping spree, buying cars, jewelry, drugs, clothes, and more. He and others used cash and a credit card that belonged to Ali.

Turner fled to Colorado where U.S. Marshals arrested him. On his body they found a firearm which was determined to be the murder weapon.

"This was a premeditated, cold-blooded murder," Boulware told the jury. "From the moment he was charged with this crime, he has tried to escape responsibility."

Bangs noted that before this trial began, Turner obtained the names of jurors and their telephone numbers, and gave them to an inmate charged with murder. At the trial on November 20, as Bangs addressed the jury, Turner tried to hold up a sign to the jury but was handcuffed by Sheriff's deputies who removed him from the courtroom, while he yelled out "she lied."

Ali came to the United States from Pakistan decades ago to pursue the American dream. Ali's son, Hussein, spoke in the courtroom after the death penalty was announced. "Thank you for giving us justice," Ali said. "I hope there are no more devils like this person."