Police Thursday arrested two of Robert Maxwell's sons and charged them in the disappearance of millions of dollars in pension funds from the late publishing magnate's financial empire, officials said.
Kevin and Ian Maxwell were charged with conspiring to defraud, as was a third man, Larry Trachtenberg, a former director of a private Maxwell company that managed pension funds, the Serious Fraud Office said. Kevin Maxwell and Trachtenberg also were charged with theft.Police seized papers, files, photographs and computer disks from the Maxwells' homes, said Press Association, Britain's national news agency.
The three men were picked up at their homes, taken to a police station for questioning and were to appear before a magistrate later Thursday, said a spokeswoman for the Serious Fraud Office who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Kevin, 33, and Ian, 36, both helped their father run his publishing businesses and took them over for a short time after his mysterious death last fall. The Maxwell media empire, which includes the New York Daily News, subsequently collapsed from too much debt, and its companies were put under court administration.
Robert Maxwell is accused of misappropriating hundreds of millions of dollars from the pension funds of public companies he controlled to pay off debts and cover operating losses at his private firms.