ATHENS // Greek authorities on Tuesday were seeking clues in global child disappearance cases resembling a young blonde girl whose discovery in a Roma camp has sparked worldwide interest.
“There are nearly a dozen disappearance cases from countries such as the US, Sweden, Poland and France that are being more closely investigated,” said Panagiotis Pardalis, a spokesman from the Smile of the Child charity that has been assigned care of the toddler.
The girl, known as Maria, was found by police last week in a Roma camp near the town of Farsala in central Greece.
Initially thought to be four years old, but later confirmed from dental checks to be five or six, she was kept by a Roma couple who were placed in pretrial detention on Monday for allegedly abducting her.
The couple, a 39-year-old man and his 40-year-old wife, deny the charge and claim that she was voluntarily handed over by her Bulgarian Roma mother who could not care for her.
Smile of the Child has said Maria is at a Athens hospital for health tests and will soon be taken to one of the organisation’s care homes.
The girl’s discovery has struck a powerful chord with parents of missing children around the world, including those of the Briton Madeleine McCann, who vanished in Portugal in May 2007.
The Smile of the Child has received more than 8,000 calls from around the world on the case since this weekend, Mr Pardalis said.
“Some are calls to give information, and we forward to the police whatever we feel can be helpful to the case. Other calls are from people who want to express sympathy.
“This case has highlighted the problem and the need to deal with it. There are (parents of missing children) who have been living in agony for years. We tend to forget these cases exist,” he said.
According to police, the Roma couple had registered 14 children in total, most of them through false documents, enabling them to claim state benefits.
Late on Monday, the Athens mayor George Kaminis sacked the head of the city’s birth registries department, where Maria had been recorded in 2009.
“The case has exposed shortcomings at all levels,” Mr Kaminis said, noting that postdated child registrations had multiplied eight-fold from 2011.
“One can speculate that a great number of these cases was carried out so people could claim benefits from as many sources as possible.”
There are more than 40 pending cases on the trading of minors and illegal adoptions in Greece, some of them implicating doctors and private clinics, according to the justice ministry.
Police were also investigating hospitals and childcare agencies for possible child trafficking, suspecting a ring operating between Bulgaria and Greece.
“The police are investigating every possible angle,” a spokeswoman at the Larissa police station said.
* Agence France-Presse
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”