Missing hedgie Arthur Nadel didn’t even bother to leave the United States – the latest word out of Sarasota is that he’s been tracked to Slidell, Louisiana. How’d they track him? He called his wife from there. Brilliant. Nadel was a big patron of Sarasota jazz and a trained pianist, so we only assume he’s been playing piano in a seedy lounge down there and trying to reinvent himself.

More details are coming out about Nadel’s timeline, as well. When he couldn’t meet redemption calls, he started telling his investors to wait until January 15th, which presumably gave him time to get some of his ducks in a row.

I know of one publicly traded company anxiously awaiting Nadel’s return – Mace (nasdaq ticker, not surprisingly, MACE) reported today they lost $2.2 million in one of Nadel’s funds, and will take a charge to earnings for it. Their stock is down about 3.5% today. Probably this has some investors hoping he gets a blast of the product in the eyes upon capture.

Here, a Sarasota detective speaks on the case:

Interesting:

If law enforcement agents do find Nadel, it is unclear how they would be able to take him into custody. He is considered a suspect in a fraud case but has not been charged with a crime.

“When they find him, they’ll bring him back. Trust me. They’re the feds,” a source said.

Can you extradite someone to Florida for having, say, an unpaid parking ticket at St. Armands, or not paying the garage fees when you dump your car at Sarasota-Bradenton International? Or are we really in a day and age where whatever the feds think they need to do, they just do it, even if they haven’t bothered to rustle up one count of *anything*? (I question not that he should be allowed to stay on the run, but the fact that in a week, nobody’s come up with a even a single charge yet.)