A worldwide manhunt is on for Angelo Haligiannis, a college dropout from Queens, New York, who recast himself as a high-flying hedge fund manager and last year was convicted of defrauding unsuspecting investors of tens of millions of dollars. The 33-year-old founder of Sterling Watters Group, who faced up to 25 years in jail after pleading guilty to securities fraud charges in September, failed to show up for his scheduled sentencing on January 10 in a New York City federal court. As Institutional Investor went to press late last month, his whereabouts were still unknown.
Federal authorities fear that Haligiannis, whose exploits were the subject of an II feature story (“Anatomy of a Debacle,” August 2005), may have left the country, even though they confiscated his passport before he disappeared. Interpol has been notified that Haligiannis may attempt to cross international borders. Many of Haligiannis’s former investors are equally concerned he will leave the U.S. -- if he hasn’t already -- because they believe he may have hidden assets in offshore accounts to facilitate just such an escape.
“Where did he go? How did he leave?” says Jerry Drenis, co-owner of a Brooklyn heating oil company, who lost millions in the Sterling Watters fraud. “Angelo supposedly had only ten cents in his pocket. The feds claimed he had lost everything. Obviously, they didn’t look hard enough. A guy doesn’t just flee across the world, penniless.” In total, Sterling Watters’ investors deposited at least $63 million, and possibly as much as $78 million, in Haligiannis’s long-short equity fund, which the U.S. Department of Justice has described as little more than a long-running Ponzi scheme.
