The Avanti Group
The suited executives behind Macau's gaming industry knew Navin Aggarwal as a respected adviser in big land, hotel and casino deals. But it was a façade that hid a craving to gamble that could lose him as much as HK$10 million in a day.
It has also cost Aggarwal, 47, the next 12 years of his life - his jail sentence for engineering an HK$8.5 billion fraud scheme described by a High Court judge last month as the worst embezzlement case in Hong Kong's history.
The victims lost at least HK$572 million.
Law Society vice-president Stephen Hung Wan-shun said Aggarwal would be struck off the roll of solicitors and be banned from ever practising again. The society will refer his case soon for disciplinary proceedings.
"Stealing clients' money is a very, very, very serious misconduct," Hung said.
The former partner of international law firm K&L Gates found himself drawn to the gambling tables not long after he was assigned to Macau to advise clients in the gaming industry in the early 2000s.
He headed a corporate finance team specialising in mergers and acquisitions, regulatory compliance and securities work. Professionally, he was a successful man, but that meant nothing when it came to controlling a desire to keep trying his luck at the gambling tables.
Generous in placing bets, Aggarwal was soon taken to the VIP rooms, where he played baccarat. The money he earned as a high-flying legal eagle - as much as US$1 million a year - quickly became insignificant compared to his debts.
Finding no way out, he put an elaborate scam into play starting from 2007.
By the time he was caught in 2011, he had duped 92 investors and two clients - including some of the shrewdest businessmen and professionals in Hong Kong - into handing over their money for "business opportunities".
Aggarwal was declared bankrupt in July last year.
The seven current partners