LKF / 蘭桂坊
October 13th, 2025 | kobi ansong
Sterile room, fluorescent lights, it’s freezing too. Agent Fields across the table, a face you wanna punch. He says, Tell me about Zahid. We met in Lan Kwai Fong, aka LKF. A cluster of cobblestone alleys that make up Hong Kong’s de facto party district. A belligerent combination of white tourists, mainland Chinese money, and local hustlers. All under neon lights. Most locals avoid LKF at all costs. It’s for outsiders.
I pop into a dim lounge with radioactive goldfish. The bartender slides me a cheap beer. Sup dude, he says. I caught the Patek first, then the unibrow. Zahid Ahmed. We’re both 20. I’m studying abroad, he’s here on business. We’re almost identical, only difference is Zahid got motion. He invented a solar panel iPhone charger. We send a group of girls a bottle of champagne and party with them the rest of the night. He’s a nonstop name-dropper. As soon as the DJ drops the Weeknd, he says, You know...I met Abel one time? The girls think it’s cringy, but he swipes for everything so they don’t mind too much.
The next day we caught the train to Shenzhen. The forecast is gray skies and depression. The atmosphere is poisoned from the factories. If it says MADE IN CHINA, they made it in Shenzhen. We pull up to Foxconn, a sprawling dystopian city with checkpoints, armed guards, and lab coats everywhere. This is where Apple makes the f*cking iPhone. We signed 100 NDAs. Yellow nets are fastened to the buildings. One of the lab coats says the nets are safety measures. Last year they had 14 worker suicides–they all jumped. Zahid says, Why they don’t do it at home? It’s cleaner, more polite, no?
Agent Fields stirs his coffee and stares. After China, you two keep in touch? We did. Helped him pick out designer pieces and taught him Instagram DM etiquette. In a few months, Zahid’s success explodes. The Scandinavian press are calling him Norwegian Mark Zuckerberg. He raises crazy tech money and dives into high society with a vengeance. He’s even working the political angle, finessed a White House Clean Energy ambassador role.
One day in Atlanta, he scoops me in a Porsche 911 Turbo S. He has a crush on the Princess of Jordan, and wants to send her 10 dozen roses. I tell him to calm down. We’re racing down Northside Drive. He zig-zags, overtaking every car with F1 precision. Life’s a video game and Zahid just knows how to play. I tell him, I want in on whatever he does next. He tells a story.
At 11, his family moved to Norway from India. Zahid’s father abandoned a heart surgeon career to run a small shop. Zahid couldn’t speak English or Norwegian. They taunted him: brown boy, brown boy. He forged an application and got accepted into a top boarding school. They ask why he lied? 13 year-old Zahid says, I don’t lie, I win.
Weeks later, he hits me about his new startup. The business plan is 60 pages. An old professor says it’s legit, so I made an investment. A bit of cash I stashed from student loan refunds and flipping sneakers. Wait, you gave him money? I nod. Agent Fields gulps. Zahid scammed tens of millions from some of the world’s most powerful people. I’ll never get my 4 g’s back. I was last in a long line of well-capitalized white men and Saudi royals. They sentenced him to 14 years. The prison is somewhere in South Georgia.