Disappearing Like Money in the Markets

Florida hedge fund manager leaves suicide note but no one's seen him

House arrest is for chumps like Bernard Madoff who confessed to his sons that he lost $50 billion.

Perhaps that's what Florida fund manager Arthur Nadel figured when he left for work this week and never arrived at the office, or came home. Now investors suspect that the 76-year-old manager of Scoop Management, Inc. may have lost $350 million of their money, according to Bloomberg News.

Nadel, a former real estate developer and graduate of New York University Law School, was last seen Wednesday when he went off to work at his money management company. He later called his stepson and directed him to a note he had left at his house, which the Herald-Tribune in Sarasota described as a suicide note.

Police began an investigation when they received a call reporting the suspicion that hundreds of millions of dollars of investors' money was missing from Scoop Management.

Mega-fund manager and one-time Wall St. legend Bernard Madoff has been under house arrest since he confessed to running a multi-year self-described Ponzi scheme in which he may have lost $50 billion of investors' money. Fund manager Rene-Thierry Magon De La Villehuchet , who invested his clients' wealth with Madoff, later killed himself in his office.

In contrast, an Indiana investment manager tried to make a run for it in elaborate fashion by faking his death. Marcus Schrenker flew his plane to Florida and parachuted out in mid-flight after calling in a distress call that insinuated he was injured by a collision with a bird.

Faking it appears to be common with failed or crooked money managers. Last year, Samuel Israel III faked a suicide leap off a New York bridge the day he was scheduled to report to prison after being convicted of fraud. He later turned himself in at the advice of his mother.

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