The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said it has won an emergency asset freeze against a money manager who claimed to invest $1.5 billion, and fraudulently lured clients with false boasts of his investment prowess despite major losses in Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme. Nikolai Battoo, 41, was also charged with fraud by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over his alleged scheme, which regulators said attracted at least $100 million from U.S. investors. Regulators also accused Battoo of using the impact of last October's bankruptcy of commodities broker MF Global Holdings Ltd as an excuse not to meet investor redemptions. According to the SEC, a Chicago federal judge has frozen the U.S.-based assets of Battoo and two of his companies, BC Capital Group SA in Panama and BC Capital Group Ltd in Hong Kong. The CFTC also filed charges against these defendants, as well as against Switzerland-based BC Capital Group Holdings SA and U.K.-based BC Capital Management LLP. “Battoo
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