Inside Hong Kong’s posh American Club, few worked a room quite like Avery Stone. Over steak dinners and cigars, Stone charmed a Who’s Who of financiers into investing millions in his fledgling business. Then, earlier this year, everything unraveled--and he vanished. Left behind are the questions, including the big one: How did Stone and his partners at Global Merchant Funding Ltd. apparently dupe Hong Kong’s princes of finance into believing their business was on solid-footing? Accountants are still trying to piece together the answers. "This isn’t a deal that went bad, these guys systematically preyed off their ... (full story)