Slightly longer piee below:
Man arrested in failed hedge funds
Published on Monday, July 21, 2008
By Trent Jacobs
trent@caymannetnews.com
The Royal Cayman Islands Police Service (RCIPS) have arrested an unidentified 47-year-old man in connection with last month’s collapse of several Cayman-domiciled investment funds.
Detectives from the Financial Crimes Unit (FCU) arrested the man on suspicion of theft, false accounting and uttering false documents after their investigations into the collapse of four hedge funds listed under the umbrella name “Grand Island”.
In June the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA) confirmed that the “Grand Island” funds were put into voluntary liquidation by the funds’ shareholders. Three of the four funds involved were registered with CIMA in 2006 and one other was an unregulated fund.
Police say that the funds were believed to have been worth millions of dollars, though it is still unclear how much money was lost and how many people are affected by its collapse.
However, it is widely speculated that the losses are up to $70 million dollars and the main commodity being traded was oil. Because of the nature of the three registered funds investors had to contribute at the very least US$100,000.
Since the funds were based in Cayman, it is believed that some of the investors may be local residents. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a financial insider with knowledge of the troubled funds said, “This fraud is solely Cayman-based and may have a profound effect on Cayman’s reputation as a financial centre. Every other hedge fund fraud has taken place outside of Cayman.”
Cayman Net News has learned that Close Brothers (Cayman) Ltd was the funds’ administrator and prominent local businessman Naul Bodden was a director of at least one of the funds.
After it became apparent that there were serious irregularities in the funds’ trading activities, David Walker and Nick Freeland of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) were appointed by shareholders to be in charge of liquidating the fund. In a statement to the press PwC said that they are currently working to recover an undisclosed amount of money from a Canadian bank.
“We confirm that on 11 July PwC Corporate Finance & Recovery (Cayman) Ltd, a company wholly owned by PricewaterhouseCoopers Cayman Islands, was appointed as receiver over various accounts held at ScotiaMcLeod in Canada. รข€¯The purpose of the receivership appointment is to facilitate the repatriation of monies currently held in accounts at ScotiaMcLeod back to the Cayman Islands and for these monies to be held in custody by the receiver, until such time the various parties who may have an interest in the monies can determine the proper allocation of the monies.”
PwC also said in their statement that they have applied to the Grand Court to put the liquidation process under court supervision and expect the application to be heard by next week.
While the police continue their investigation, CIMA has said that they are conducting their own investigation into the matter and will work closely with both the courts and the liquidators to resolve the situation and recover lost funds.
Police said that the man in question is currently on bail pending further investigations. The RCIPS is asking anyone with information or knowledge to come forward by contacting Detective Sergeant Claire Jackson on 949-8797.
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