The chief executive officer of the company that owns Dubai’s second-tallest building counts as his mentor the owner of a Northern Virginia coffee bean roasting company who ran a $7 million Ponzi scheme.

Hanif Hassan Moledina, owner of Bean East Corp., admitted to telling investors that he had a lucrative contract to sell Folger’s coffee beans from Colombia. That contract never existed and the 47-year-old used the lie to obtain millions of dollars in high-interest loans from friends. Among them was well-known Washington philanthropist George F. Kettle, who won a $3 million lawsuit against Moledina last March, a month before Kettle died.