Renwick Haddow, the elusive mastermind behind the alleged co-working Ponzi scheme Bar Works, was arrested in Morocco Wednesday. Authorities in Tangiers detained him in response to a July 17 notice by Interpol, the Daily Mail reported.
A court in Morocco will now decide whether Haddow can be extradited. U.S. Authorities had unveiled an arrest warrant for Haddow on June 30.
Haddow’s arrest comes seven months after The Real Deal first exposed his role in Bar Works. Prosecutors accuse him of bilking investors from around the globe out of close to $37 million.
New York-based Bar Works raised money from investors by telling them they were buying desks in its co-working spaces and promising double-digit returns. Haddow, who has been accused of running Ponzi schemes in the past, carefully hid his involvement, installing his Ukrainian wife as a co-founder under an assumed name.
“Haddow created two trendy companies and misled investors into believing that highly-qualified executives were leading them to quick profitability,” the SEC’s New York director Andrew Calamari said in a statement last month. “In reality, Haddow controlled the companies from behind the scenes and they were far from profitable.”
Earlier this month, TRD published an investigation into Bar Works and the rise of online real estate fraud. [Daily Mail] — Konrad Putzier