Former Abraaj managing partner Sivendran Vettivetpillai may get 115-year jail time

LONDON: Former Abraaj managing partner Sivendran Vettivetpillai has pleaded guilty to nine counts of criminal activities — said to have been committed between 2014 and 2018 — that could carry a total of 115 years in jail and a fine of up to $11.5 million.

Sri Lankan-born and British national Vettivetpillai pleaded guilty in the UK via a remote hearing before Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn at a US District Court in New York.

Vettivetpillai changed his not-guilty plea to guilty in order to get fewer jail years and fines through a bargain with the US authorities against Arif Naqvi — the Pakistani-born founder of Abraaj — according to court documents seen by Geo.tv.

Vettivetpillai's guilty plea comes as a result of the deal the former Abraaj executive made with the US authorities to reduce his sentence and fine.

This follows another Abraaj managing partner Mustafa Abdel-Wadood, who also pleaded guilty.

Naqvi, who is on bail and lives at his Knightsbridge apartment, has strongly denied all allegations against him and continues to fight the extradition case, stressing he will not get justice in the US and that he should be tried in the UK — if need be.

Vettivetpillai, who lives in a £3.5 million sprawling mansion in Northwood, confirmed before the Magistrate Judge “that no threats or promises, or other improper inducements” were made to him to cause him to consent and that he was accepting the criminal charges against him as truth “voluntarily”.

Court papers show that Vettivetpillai’s guilty plea has been accepted by the US Judge and he is now awaiting sentencing.

The US prosecutors have alleged that Vettivetpillai, Naqvi, Abdel-Wadood, and others caused “at least hundreds of millions” of investor funds to be misappropriated, either to disguise liquidity shortfalls or for their personal benefit.

In a court order dated July 23, 2021, a US district judge had allowed the guilty pleas of Vettivetpillai to be taken “through videoconference or telephonic means” because due to COVID-19 and the ex-Abraaj official's “medical condition".

The US prosecutors have alleged that former Abraaj managing partner Vettivetpillai attempted to hide the firm's precarious finances from investors, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, while trying to raise $6 billion for a private equity fund.

In the indictment, US federal prosecutors allege that Vettivetpillai and others inflated the valuations of investments in private equity funds by more than half a billion dollars and fraudulently claimed that Abraaj funds were more successful than they were.

These inflated valuations deprived investors of accurate information on which to base their investment decisions, the indictment said.

Defrauded investors included "several" US financial institutions, retirement, and pension funds, as well as a US government agency, according to the indictment.

Who is Vettivetpillai?

Vettivetpillai is a chartered financial analyst by profession. He is married to Menaka Ganeshalingam Vettivetpillai, daughter of Yamuna Ganeshalingam and Kanagasabai Ganeshalingam, the late Sri Lankan Tamil politician who served as Mayor of Colombo.

Vettivetpillai had joined Abraaj in 2012 after his investment firm Aureos Capital was acquired by Naqvi.

At Abraaj, Vettivetpillai focussed on impact investing, mainly within its healthcare fund till 2018; he then joined Liechtenstein’s LGT Impact Ventures as its chief executive but left after only 10 months to “move on to other initiatives”.

It is stated on the UK’s Registrar of Companies' website that Vettivetpillai has been involved with multiple properties and healthcare companies in the UK since 2015.

The public records show he has been operating these companies through a tangled spider's web of holding companies and offshore trusts in Singapore and the Channel Islands under the name of his wife Menaka Ganeshalingham Vettivetpillai.

Vettivetpillai was arrested a few days after Naqvi’s arrest in London and temporarily jailed in the UK’s Wandsworth prison during April 2019 in the aftermath of the world's biggest private equity insolvency.