Investor Alberto Chang-Rajii, who disappeared from public view amid controversy about his claims and the soundness of his financial operations, is in Malta, according to Chilean media.
Mr Chang-Rajii is the president and founder of Grupo Arcano, an international private equity and venture capital firm developing new companies in the areas of energy, natural resources and innovation technology.
He used to portray himself as an investment guru, claiming he got an MBA and masters in behavioural science from Stanford and that he was a seed investor in Google when the company was founded in the 1990s.
But after newspapers raised the possibility that these assertions may not be true, Mr Chang-Rajii backtracked and said he attended Stanford but “didn’t take the final exam”.
People claiming to be customers of Grupo Arcano and its investment-management affiliate Onix Capital arenow saying that their e-mails and telephone calls were not being answered
Onix Capital promised investors sky-high returns with some clients even guaranteed annual returns of up to 36 per cent.
When media reports started casting doubts about his operations last month, Mr Chang-Rajiitold investors: “I understand that the cases of fraud that have populated the press in the past few weeks are generating fear. Grupo Arcano is far from these types of companies and it’s backed by its financial solvency.”
Three executives resigned, telling investors that they had “serious doubts” about the “amount and accuracy” of Mr Chang-Rajii assets.
"We have worked in Grupo Arcano for several years and have always performed real operations," David Senerman, Grupo Arcano's chief investment officer, Nicole Soumastre, chief executive of its investment unit, and Paulo Brignardello, Arcano's chief business officer, wrote in an email to the clients.
"We invested much of our own savings and our families' savings with him. This deceit affects us personally, professionally, and also in our own wealth."
In the meantime, the Chilean public prosecutor raided Grupo Arcano’s offices as part of an investigation into the case.
Attempts to contact Mr Chang-Rajii were not successful.