Talesha Reynolds and Rich Gardella , NBC News 1 day

Jack Lew, President Barack Obamas Treasury Secretary nominee, previously held up to $100,000 in investments in an offshore hedge fund located in the Cayman Islands, according to financial disclosure forms.

Lews financial disclosure forms, filed in 2009 and 2011, showed that Lew had invested between $50,000 and $100,000 in a fund called Citigroup Venture Capital International Growth Partnership (Employee) II, L.P. -- the very type of fund President Obama has repeatedly criticized.

The fund is an international venture capital fund for employees of Citigroup. According to his official White House biography, Lew served as managing director and chief operating officer of Citi Global Wealth Management and then Citi Alternative Investments (CAI) from 2006 to 2008.

Lew himself isn't commenting, but a person familiar with Lews investment told NBC News that Lew invested a total of $56,000 and sold it at a loss for $54,418 in November 2010 after being confirmed as director of the federal Office of Management and Budget.

The source also told NBC News that Lew had no role in creating, managing or operating the fund, and that Citigroup had organized the fund in the Cayman Islands and made it available to other employees. The source said that many other Citigroup employees had investments in the fund.

According to a Securities and Exchange Commission document, the fund was registered at what has been called a notorious address in the Cayman Islands, located in the Caribbean in the British West Indies. Specifically, the funds address was a post office box in a building called Ugland House, in the capital city of George Town on Grand Cayman, the largest of the three Cayman islands.

In 2007 as a presidential candidate and in 2009 as president, Obama identified Ugland House as part of an outrageous tax scam, because according to filings, it housed 12,000 businesses that all claimed the building as their headquarters.

For years, we've talked about shutting down overseas tax havens that let companies set up operations to avoid paying taxes in America, Obama said in remarks about tax reform in 2009. Either this is the largest building in the world, or the largest tax scam in the world. And I think the American people know which it is. That's the kind of tax scam that we need to end.

A political ad targeting Republican candidate Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential campaign asked, Why would Mitt Romney invest millions in the Cayman Islands?

Continued here:

Jack Lew's Cayman Islands investment flagged