Diamonds.net – Financial investigators are trying to locate a stash of 100 diamonds bought in Hong Kong using money linked to a high-profile hedge-fund scandal in Canada.
The tangled web leading to the diamonds involves a Hong Kong diamond merchant, a Chinese woman with a Hong Kong identity card who made the purchase, and a Canadian hedge fund co-founder hiding in Israel.
When the C$800 million Canadian hedge fund Portus Alternative Asset Management folded in 2005 following allegations that a co-founder misappropriated $95.4 million, it left 26,000 investors out of pocket. The race was on to trace and recover the embezzled cash before it disappeared forever.
With all but $17.6 million recovered, investigators appointed to find the missing millions turned their attention to an $8.8 million diamond purchase conducted by Portus co-founder Boaz Manor in Hong Kong.
