For years Donald Trump was the host of The Apprentice, a reality TV show in which contestants vied for a management job within his organisation and he would deliver the verdict: “You’re fired!”

It cemented the image of Trump as an assertive chief executive who had conquered New York, an image that still proves seductive to millions of voters who want him to run America like a business. But like much else about the 45th US president, it was all a lie.

On Tuesday a judge found that Trump’s business empire was built, at least in part, on rampant fraud. Justice Arthur Engoron of the New York state court in Manhattan said Trump and his adult sons wildly inflated the value of his properties to hoodwink banks, insurers and others.

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The decision will make it easier for state attorney general Letitia James to establish damages at a civil trial due to start next week; she is seeking a penalty of about $250m. Engoron ordered the cancellation of certificates that let some of Trump’s businesses, including the Trump Organization, operate in New York – just possibly the beginning of the end of his empire.