K1 Manager Frerichs Killed Himself to Escape Arrest

Dieter Frerichs, a suspect in an international investigation into hedge-fund firm K1 Group, shot and killed himself to avoid arrest, Spanish police and German prosecutors said.

Frerichs was a managing director of two British Virgin Island-based K1 investment funds, which were part of a scheme to defraud banks and thousands of private investors of more than 300 million euros ($376 million), said prosecutors in Wuerzburg, Germany. The prosecutors had sought extradition of Frerichs, 72, who was staying in Palma on the Spanish island of Mallorca. They said he committed suicide today in an e-mailed statement.