Why can't they follow the money trail and find the money? In this case, it looks like it wasn't just trading losses. It looks like they stole money from investors, plain and simple. Why can't they just follow the money trail and see where it leads? Even if they transferred money to a Swiss bank account, there will at least be a record from the transferring bank that shows the transfer. AP Floridians Lose Millions in Hedge Fund Saturday August 13, 7:33 pm ET Dozens of Wealthy Floridians Lose $160 Million in Alleged Investment Con, Investigators Say MIAMI (AP) -- Dozens of wealthy investors were scammed out of $160 million by three self-proclaimed hedge fund operators who set up flashy offices in Palm Beach County, took their money and ran, federal investigators said. ADVERTISEMENT Now, months after authorities became suspicious, two of the three partners have fled the country, and the third isn't answering questions from investigators. Most of KL Financial's 200 clients were men of retirement age. Gary Klein, a lawyer representing dozens of them, told The Miami Herald that he has clients who lost everything. The SEC has filed a formal complaint accusing KL Financial of misrepresenting the fund's performance and possibly misappropriating money. A federal court has frozen the company's assets. Mike Tein, one of KL's court-appointed receivers, said the three men directly received $20 million during their six-year reign at KL, spending lavishly on million-dollar homes, exotic sports cars and frequent trips to Las Vegas. Within 24 hours of a surprise visit to a KL Financial office in California in February by SEC investigators, Won Lee, 34, reportedly cashed in frequent-flier miles for a one-way ticket to South Korea. Investigators have not heard from him since. Another partner, Yung Kim, 34, vanished a day later, but answered a surprised investigator's cell phone call weeks later. The line went dead after Yung was asked where he was, and authorities haven't heard from him since, Tein said. Chief trader John Kim, 36, remains in Florida and has promised to cooperate with investigators. But during a March 11 deposition, John Kim asserted his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination to each of 195 questions. His attorney, Gregory C. Ward, said in a March 16 motion that Lee and Yung Kim were to blame for losing the firm's money "without John Kim's knowledge or participation."
Kinda makes you think about how easy it must be to get money into hedge funds. Hope those Koreans at least bought some fast food franchises back in Korea with the money. Anyone know if they spoke English? Other than the single line, "takehyumuneenrahn. tahnkuamericaneediots."
Palm Beach is no real money anymore. Most of the real dough moved north to Hobe Sound. That's where Norman is, etc. The people, for the most part, left in Palm Beach are nouveau rich, inherited dough, basically idiots. There was one braggart telling people he had 25mm in KL. Genius, right? Another said the trader let him watch while he traded his way to 1mm profit one morning. It reminded me of " The Grifters". Remember the scene where the "hedgie" invites the guy to look outback to see the computers that allow him to arb the Pcoast Ny lag time in communication. We see those articles down here all the time. Maggot mile, you know. They eventually catch the guys. The last guy blew his brains out when he got caught. he ran it for 20 years, and sent back the guys own monies for "a 20 percent return". Great entertainment. Oh, one more. The Palm Beach Milk Company. Contented cows, home delivery. This was around 1992. They meet schmucks at charity events and stuff. One broad was gonna give this guy a ton of dough, until I asked her what the shelf life of a quart of milk was in Palm Beach in July while it sat on your stoop. There were never any cows.
There is another crooked town in South Fl BOCA RATON. I never deal with any company located there, lots of fly by night operations located there. I don't know why, but there is something attracting them to this town.