Kidnap, torture, criminal energy, vigilante justice – Another day in hedge funds…
Here’s a novel idea, if your hedge fund manager loses your life savings you get to kidnap them and beat them up. I am 
kidding of course, but in a bizarre revenge plot, that was exactly the approach taken by four German senior citizens. The man they kidnapped and beat was an American born investment adviser named James Amburn.
Perhaps these investors were influenced by a wave of new U.S. vigilante movies such as Kick-Ass? (clip below):
Perhaps this will usher in a new age of activism, where instead of seeking board seats like other activist investors, people who suffer losses simply obtain recompense via more forceful means. This new modern code of Hammurabi, could be would have certain rules of course.
Yes, rather than the abject street justice of doled out by vigilante’s such as Charles Bronson in Death Wish, there would be some sort of structure. It could be Gladitorial combat for the entertainment of investors and the financial media, popularized recently by such films as the aptly named Gladiator or the popular television program Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Or perhaps it would be something more civilized such as when Spock and McCoy fought Gladiators:
Or perhaps it could be a more clandestine individual or groups of vigilante’s fighting for investors rights such as 
Batman. Unfortunately, though just as not everyone can be a star hedge fund manager, neither can all defrauded investors be Batman. Instead these individuals could form a new type of SEC which protected investors at risk of being defrauded everywhere such as the Justice League or the X-Men.
Fortunately, or not, none of this will happen – nor should it. Hedge fund managers, just as investors both have rights and both should play an active role in the investment process. As Mr. Amburn (and his assailants) story outlines, even a little due diligence before an investment is made can prevent a great deal of litigation, better risk management, and a more thorough understanding of the full pallete of risks being undertaken. So too must a hedge fund manager provide transparency and on-going level of information to facilitate this process. If not, it can unfortunately lead to this type of result…
The Story of James Amburn:
Amburn was ambushed outside his home in Speyer, West Germany, where he was bound with masking tape and bundled into the trunk of a car after being hit over the head with a walker (called Zimmer Frame in the UK) of one of his kidnappers.
Prosecutors charged the two married couples, aged between 60 and 79, as well as the co-conspirator, with carrying out the kidnapping in order to recoup losses amounting to £2.3 million in investments that soured due to the international financial downturn.
Amburn was abducted and driven to a house on the shores of Lake Chiemsee (pictured below):
He was driven 300 miles to a house on the shores of beautiful Lake Chiemsee in Bavaria – but not before escaping at a service station.
His elderly abductors recaptured him and beat him with the walker (aka: Zimmer Frame in King’s English), causing Amburn two broken ribs.
The court in Traunstein, Germany heard prosecutors describe the kidnapping and torture as ‘almost surreal – except it happened.’
For four days Amburn was kept in the cellar of the house in June last year, beaten and tortured by the pensioners who saw their comfortable retirement dreams evaporating before their eyes.
Another couple, retired doctors Gerhard and Iris Fell, aged 63 and 66, who arrived to assist the kidnappers, admitted their roles in the plot. Mr Fell was not in court due to illness. Koenig and his wife Sieglinde, 79, made a partial admission but he, bizarrely, told the court that Amburn was there ‘willingly.’
A Chance Meeting In Florida
He said he and the others had met Amburn in Florida in the 1990′s and they possessed holiday homes in the state. ‘He said he was a business adviser and promised us yields of 18 percent on our savings,’ he told the court. ‘At first that happened – but then he took the p**s.’
They met up co-incidentally with Dehmer who told them Amburn owed him $690,000. Together, say prosecutors, the plan coalesced to ‘teach him a lesson.’ ‘The fear of death was indescribable,’ Amburn said, adding that he was beaten and tortured during four days of captivity in a cellar room where he was held naked. He was rescued when he was ordered to send a fax to release funds from a Swiss bank and managed to scribble a message on it for the recipient to call police.
He said: ‘I told them that if I sold certain securities in Switzerland they could get their money and for this I had to send a fax to a bank.’ Allowed out of the cellar for a cigarette break in the garden while the kidnappers awaited their loot, Amburn attempted to escape over a wall. In the pouring rain he ran down the street pursued by his captors in the Audi A8 they had used to transport him to the house. Several people saw him, but Roland Koening shouted: ‘He’s a burglar!’
Amburn was then dragged back to the cellar. Shortly afterwards, the Swiss bank telephoned police in Germany and a team of armed commandos stormed the house. His captors now face a minimum of five years in jail each when the trial concludes in March. Their lawyer Harald Baumgaertl insisted before the court that his clients were not ‘big criminals.’
But the prosecution disagreed, saying they showed a ‘high degree of criminal energy.’ Wiley Dehmer (pictured below):
Roland Koenig (pictured below):
According to the prosecutors, kidnappers, Roland Koenig, 74, and Willy Dehmer, 60, attacked Amburn outside his home and bundled him into an oversize cardboard box which they wheeled to the boot of a silver Audi saloon car.
After all this Mr. Amburn is under investigation from German authorities for fraud.
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