Shiver me timbers, it’s a global treasure hunt, it is.
Hedgie Paul Singer, head of Elliot Management, has been on a years-long, worldwide hunt for Argentine assets to satisfy his $1.6 billion court judgment against the country, documents show.
This week, the quest caused a stir when Singer had an Argentine navy vessel detained as it docked in Ghana.
Argentina blasted detention of the training vessel, granted by a court in Ghana, as “a sneak attack of vulture funds.”
But records show the three-masted ARA Libertad, which had more than 200 passengers on board, is far from the biggest target of Singer’s swashbuckling ways.
Elliott has also gone after Bank of America, Exxon Mobil, Apache Corp., the Washington, DC, base of Argentina’s naval attaché, and, the New York Federal Reserve Bank, The Post has learned.
It’s all part of Singer’s mission, through Elliot’s NML Capital unit, to recover some of the $600 million in bonds it lost amid Argentina’s massive $100 billion default in 2001. Elliot bought the bonds at steep discounts, paying as little as 15 cents on the dollar in some cases.
In 2010, a Manhattan federal court judge gave Elliot the OK to seize some $105 million Argentina’s Central Bank had stashed with the New York fed. The fed objected, and Elliot lost on appeal.
Singer is also battling with Exxon and Apache for documents showing their financial dealings with Argentina.
In August, NML was granted permission to subpoena BofA for documents showing Argentina’s accounts with the bank.
Singer once pressed the courts for income rental from a posh Washington, DC, property that houses Argentina’s naval attaché, records show. But he dropped the case in 2010 for reasons undisclosed.
In Ghana, the Elliot fund NML is demanding Argentina fork over cash before it releases the ship, worth an estimated $10 million.
The ship was carrying more than 200 passengers at the time, including 70 navy cadets.