“Global investors may be growing wary of emerging markets as the US prepares to scale back its monetary largesse next year, but one fund has hit on what it hopes could be a boom industry – Brazilian fraud.
The move by New York-based hedge fund Platinum Partners to invest in the recovery of Brazilian fraud claims worth R$12bn (US$5.1bn) shows how investors are venturing deeper into the more esoteric areas of emerging markets in their quest for yield.
Under the deal, international asset chaser Martin Kenney, a Canadian lawyer whose previous cases include representing the liquidators of the assets of renowned Texan fraudster Allen Stanford, has assembled a portfolio of 10 cases in which Platinum Partners will invest.
“Fraud has exploded,” said Mr Kenney said. Globalisation had led to a proliferation “in the use of offshore structures”, including by the dishonest, the bad and the corrupt. Mr Kenny said the deal was the largest of its kind in Brazil.
Brazil is fertile ground for corruption cases – the Supreme Court recently sentenced to jail a number of former senior members of ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s Worker’s Party for using public funds to buy votes.
Last year, in what is believed to be Brazil’s first successful cross-border recovery of funds stolen through corruption, asset chasers representing the government of the state of São Paulo convinced a court in New Jersey to order the return of $10.5m stashed in accounts there linked to senior politician Paulo Maluf.”
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Kenneth Carnesi holds a Juris Doctor degree from New York Law School and a Professional Certificate in International Banking from Harvard Law School. Kenneth Carnesi is the Director of Operations and Government Sales at Anaptyx LLC and sits on the Boards of The Lazarus Organization, Monkeetech LLC and MG Madison Phillips, Inc. Mr. Carnesi has also founded CICG - Carnesi International Consulting Group, a company specializing in strategy consulting to small to mid-size businesses.
Kenneth Carnesi 
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