Last year's market turmoil shook out
plenty of Ponzi schemes with Bernard Madoff headlining the show. Now U.S. criminal authorities might have another one to match
last week's search for missing Canadian financial adviser Bertram Earl Jones.
Corey Ribotsky, a managing member of Roslyn, N.Y., hedge fund NIR Group, is under investigation as to whether he defrauded investors about their returns and the holdings of his various funds, The Wall Street Journal is
reporting. While Ribotsky, who manages roughly $770 million in capital, has not been charged with anything, the WSJ says that prosecutors from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn are looking into the matter.
Ribotsky's lawyer says neither he or his firm have "knowledge of any criminal investigation and have not been contacted by any authorities."
But either way, the news is probably career ending for Ribotsky. If there's wrong-doing to be found, authorities will likely have no problem throwing the book at him. But even if there's nothing to the investigation -- after all, plenty of hedge funds collapsed in 2008 from run-of-the-mill losses in equity and debt markets -- the fact that one occurred is enough to send investors scrambling to get redemptions from the hedge fund. -
George White
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http://dealbreaker.com/2009/07/thinking-about-investing-with.php
Dealbreaker reported yesterday about the SEC investigation and shows some pretty hard evidence that this fund's returns are not what they seem.
Given the fund is already in a reorg lock as of October - investors can't really get their money back now can they.