Dean Baldwin and Paul Debenham, both 25, and Michael Weightman, 26, attacked stores repeatedly across Britain.

Dean Baldwin and Paul Debenham, both 25, and Michael Weightman, 26, attacked stores repeatedly across Britain. masked bandits used crowbars and sledge hammers to burst into high street shops overnight, cleaning out tills in a five-month burglary spree.The gang netted at least £60,000 in profits and caused a similar amount in damage, Inner London Crown Court was told. The raiders first struck in the early hours of August 19 last year, tearing through front doors of the Bedford town centre store and grabbing £300 from the till. They went on to steal from 43 more M&S stores in England, Scotland and Wales in well executed break-ins. James Brown, prosecuting, said: "These three defendants were involved in a long-running and sophisticated conspiracy to burgle Marks and Spencer stores up and down the country. "The conspiracy relied on a piece of inside knowledge namely that, at that time, a certain amount of cash was left overnight in the tills. "The participants were well-organised and aware of CCTV and forensic issues. "They were careful to remain only a few minutes inside the store once the alarms had gone off and were quite content to cause considerable damage to gain entry to the shop and the tills inside."
A raid at a store in Ayr on January 6 finally caught up with Baldwin, after his stolen blue VW Golf was captured by a security camera entering the town. He was arrested two days later by cops in the getaway car which contained gloves, crowbars and sledgehammers, and hundreds of pounds-worth of M&S vouchers stolen in Falkirk.
However the remaining members of the gang continued with the raids before being caught by police on January 23. Baldwin, of Croydon, Debenham, of Gatestone, Upper Norwood, and Weightman, of, Sutton, all in South London, each admitted conspiracy to burgle between August 1 last year to January 31 this year. Debenham admitted a further count of burglary, relating to the theft of a Wii console and a laptop on May 5 this year. Judge Lindsay Burn remanded the trio in custody ahead of sentence on October 28.

Hazem Khalid al-Braikan, who ran Al Raya Investment found dead with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head

Hazem Khalid al-Braikan, who ran Al Raya Investment, was found dead just three days after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused him of making millions of dollars from trading on falsified takeover deals. The SEC last week froze more than $5m (£3m) of his assets in various trading accounts after claiming the money was earned on false news of a purported offer by a secretive Middle Eastern investment group to buy US audio equipment maker Harman International Industries, a rumour which saw Harman’s share to rise 40pc before the opening bell on July 20.
Mr Al-Braikan’s body was found in his home in an upmarket district of Kuwait City on Sunday. Although the cause of death has not been officially confirmed, Associated Press reported the trader was found in his bed with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head. The SEC investigation made headline news last week not just because of the companies whose shares had been allegedly manipulated, but also because banking conglomerate Citigroup owns a 10pc stake in Al Raya. Citigroup has declined to comment on the matter. In addition to Al Raya, the SEC’s investigation focused on KIPCO Asset Management of Kuwait and the United Gulf Bank in Bahrain, which Mr Al-Braikan had connections to. Both institutions have denied profiting from the trades, which they have said were made on behalf of clients. In its allegations, the SEC at no time named Mr Al-Braikan as the man allegedly responsible for initiating the stock market rumours, and has declined to say who they believe started them. However, the regulator takes a dim view of those who make profits from market manipulation, whether knowingly or not. According to local reports, Mr Al-Braikan was yesterday buried at Sulaibikhat Cemetery on the outskirts of Kuwait City. Staff at Al Raya were given the day off to attend.

Amit Mathur, founder and former president of Entrust Capital Management of Worcester, was convicted last May

Amit Mathur, founder and former president of Entrust Capital Management of Worcester, was convicted last May. He wants a new trial and is challenging the credibility of a primary witness.Assistant U.S. Attorney John Capin has filed a motion opposing the bid for a new trial, saying Mathur’s arguments show his "continued refusal to accept responsibility."Investigators say Mathur used the $13 million to cover trading losses and personal expenses such as jewelry and a Porsche sport utility vehicle. He is being held in a federal detention facility in Rhode Island while awaiting his scheduled May 11 sentencing.

Nancy Jean Siegel, 61, was convicted in March of second-degree murder, witness tampering, theft of government benefits, identity theft

Nancy Jean Siegel, 61, was convicted in March of second-degree murder, witness tampering, theft of government benefits, identity theft and other charges of fraud, according to a statement from U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, Rod Rosenstein.
U.S. District Judge Andre M. Davis sentenced Siegel to 400 months in prison Thursday, according to Rosenstein. Thomas Saunders, Siegel's attorney declined to comment on the sentence.Siegel was convicted of killing Jasper Frederick Watkins, a Reisterstown man who prosecutors said was nearly 30 years older than Siegel and who moved into her Ellicott City home sometime after the two met and began a relationship in 1994.Within months of meeting Watkins, Siegel began using his bank and credit accounts, making extensive charges for clothing, jewelry and larger purchases, according to Rosenstein. She also obtained credit using Watkins personal information. By August 1995, Siegel had racked up tens of thousands of dollars of credit card debt and had an outstanding loan for a BMW for more than $40,000, according to Rosenstein.Siegel then persauded Watkins to obtain a $44,000 mortgage on his house in Reisterstown to pay off the balance on 13 credit cards, according to prosecutors. She later persuaded Watkins to take out another $20,000 mortgage, promising to marry him and use the money to buy a condo for them to live in, prosecutors said.She never bought the condo and used the money for her own expenses, according to Rosenstein. Siegel sold Watkins' house in April 1996 and began taking steps to have him wrongfully committed for psychiatric care, while pawning his personal assets, according to Rosenstein.
Autopsy reports indicate that Watkins died sometime around May 13, 1996, and found blunt force trauma to the back of his head and toxic levels of a sedative in his body, according to Rosenstein.
Watkins' body was found near trash at an access point to the Appalachian Trail in Virginia.For seven years after Watkins' death, Siegel diverted Watkins' Social Security and retirement annuity payments for her own use, according to Rosenstein.Siegel is being held by federal authorities, who declined to disclose her location.

Rafeal Heard, 34, of Cleveland, is charged with bank fraud and failing to appear in federal court

Rafeal Heard, 34, of Cleveland, is charged with bank fraud and failing to appear in federal court. U.S. postal inspectors say Heard gets others to open checking accounts he uses to deposit checks he makes. Heard's criminal history includes aggravated trafficking in cocaine, drug possession, theft, forgery, tampering with records, having guns, falsifying records and passing bad checks.He is 6 feet 1 and 170 pounds. He has contacts throughout Cleveland's East Side and frequented the East 114th Street and Hopkins Avenue area.

Fairfield Greenwich Group, the hedge fund that steered $7 billion to Bernard Madoff, faces new claims of fraud by investors

Fairfield Greenwich Group, the hedge fund that steered $7 billion to Bernard Madoff, faces new claims of fraud by investors who previously alleged negligence against co-founders Walter Noel, Jeffrey Tucker and Andres Piedrahita. The class-action suit, first filed in January in Manhattan federal court, was amended April 24 to include claims that the three co-founders and the firm acted so recklessly in placing client money with Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC that their actions constituted fraud. The amended complaint relies on documents filed by Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, who filed an administrative complaint against Fairfield Greenwich and its Sentry Funds April 1, and other investigation by the plaintiffs.
The investors’ complaint, which seeks damages for their losses, claims that Fairfield Greenwich and its executives had no basis to tell investors that their historical profits were real, that Madoff’s “split-strike conversion strategy” was legitimate, or that the firm conducted adequate due diligence. “The evidence that has come to light shows that certain of the Fairfield defendants had acted so recklessly in promoting the Fairfield Sentry Funds that they’re liable for fraud,” said Stuart Singer, of Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, one of the lead lawyers in the case. Had Fairfield Greenwich investigated Madoff, the “fraud would have been exposed many years ago,” he said. Madoff, 70, pleaded guilty March 12 to fraud by using money from new investors to pay off old ones in the largest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history. Before his Dec. 11 arrest, he had told his thousands of clients that they had about $65 billion in accounts with him, prosecutors said. Feeder funds like Fairfield Greenwich gathered investor money in their own names and sent it to Madoff. Fairfield Greenwich said the claim that it failed to exercise due diligence on behalf of investors is “false and misleading,” according to the company’s April 1 statement in response to the Massachusetts lawsuit. Fairfield “conducted vigorous and robust monitoring on an ongoing basis of the Madoff investments,” the statement said. “This monitoring was consistent with the representations made to investors in the Sentry funds.”
“These are absolutely meritless allegations against Mr. Tucker and Fairfield Greenwich,” his lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, said in an interview today. “Mr. Tucker and Fairfield Greenwich were as much the victims of Madoff’s fraud as the literally thousands of other victims.” The suit names Madoff, Fairfield Greenwich, and directors of Fairfield funds. Also sued were Citco Bank Nederland NV, a custodian; Citco Fund Services (Europe), a transfer agent; and fund administrator GlobeOp Financial Services SA. Noel’s lawyer, Glenn Kurtz, and Citco spokesman Jonathan Gasthalter declined to comment. A spokeswoman for GlobeOp who wouldn’t provide her name also refused to comment. Calls to Fairfield Greenwich’s lawyer, Peter Kazanoff, and Piedrahita’s lawyer, Andrew Levander, weren’t immediately returned. Among the approximately 30 named plaintiffs in the class action case are Pasha and Julia Anwar, an Illinois couple who claim Fairfield advisers ignored red flags about Madoff, and Pacific West Health Medical Center Inc. The suit seeks to represent more than 100 investors.

The 112-page complaint, which also contains breach-of-duty and gross negligence claims, says the investors lost their money as a “direct” result of the defendants’ failure to fulfill their obligations. It seeks the recovery of hundreds of millions of dollars in fees paid to the defendants.

“When members of the plaintiff class raised questions about Madoff, the Fairfield defendants repeatedly -- and falsely -- assured them that they had nothing to worry about,” the complaint said. In reality, “Madoff exercised total dominance and control over the monies invested as soon as he received them from the Fairfield defendants, without any oversight, advice or contest from them.” Fairfield Greenwich has also been sued by the town of Fairfield, Connecticut’s pension fund and its 1,500 members.
Separate suits are pending against other Madoff feeder funds, including Gabriel Capital LP and Cohmad Securities Group, which was part-owned by Madoff.

Metro Dream Homes was founded by Andrew Hamilton Williams Jr.

Metro Dream Homes was founded by Andrew Hamilton Williams Jr., who used some of the $50,000 minimum payments provided by home owners to cover the losses of an automated-teller-machine scheme he was ordered to shut down in 2001, according to the indictment unsealed Monday.Investors in Metro Dream Homes who forked over the $50,000 were told the company would pay off the their mortgages, court documents said. Instead, the cash was used to pay off the mortgages of the original investors, and often just landed in the pockets of Williams and the three other top company officials charged, according to the indictment.The Dream Homes Program was advertised at seminars in luxury hotels in the District, Maryland and Beverly Hills, Calif., the indictment said. Some of the original investors whose mortgages were actually being paid by later investors, would tout the program’s success during the seminars. Investors were encouraged to invest $150,000 or more through incentives offering cash rewards and positions on Metro Dream Homes’ board of directors.
The company claimed the investment dollars would be spent on promoting the company’s three side businesses: the placing of ATM’s in high-traffic areas, placing in existing businesses electronic kiosks selling telephone cards, and the placing of flat screen televisions showing video advertisements in various businesses, prosecutors allege.None of those businesses ever turned a profit, according to the indictment. Instead, much of the cash was spent on the 10 chauffeurs hired to cart around company employees in high-end cars including several Mercedes-Benzes, Cadillacs, Lincolns and Land Rovers. They also sent select employees to the 2007 NBA All-Star Game and spent $60,000 sending employees to the 2007 Super Bowl, prosecutors contend.No lawyers for the company or persons indicted were listed in court records.federal grand jury has indicted four defendants, and an information has been filed against a fifth defendant, for their participation in a massive mortgage fraud scheme that allegedly promised to pay off homeowners' mortgages on their "Dream Homes," but left them to fend for themselves, Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division Lanny A. Breuer and U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein announced today. The indictment was returned on April 22, 2009, and unsealed today.
"The Criminal Division and the U.S. Attorneys' Offices are jointly committed to redoubling our efforts to uncover and prosecute fraud and abuse in all facets of the housing market - a market upon which so many American families have pinned their hopes and their futures for so many years," said Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division Lanny A. Breuer. "I want to assure the American public that we will not rest until the tide of this criminal activity is turned.""The indictment alleges that the defendants used slick marketing to conceal empty promises," said U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein. "They convinced many victims to invest at least $50,000 by refinancing their existing homes or buying new homes at inflated prices, while claiming that Metro Dream Homes would repay the mortgages with revenue from profitable businesses. The indictment alleges that there was no revenue to pay the mortgage payments. Instead, the conspirators used some of the investors' money to repay earlier investors in the Ponzi scheme and spent the remainder on themselves.""The effects of this wide-ranging mortgage fraud scheme are particularly disturbing within the backdrop of today's economic environment. With our federal, state and local partners working on 18 mortgage fraud task forces and 47 mortgage fraud working groups across the country, the FBI is committed to combating mortgage fraud and other financial crimes nationwide to protect the American homeowner and the national economy," said Executive Assistant Director Thomas J. Harrington, FBI Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch."IRS Criminal Investigation takes allegations of mortgage fraud seriously," said "Eileen Mayer, Chief, IRS Criminal Investigation. "These types of crimes drive home owners into foreclosure, erode the integrity of our tax system and threaten the financial health of our communities." According to the indictment, from 2005 to 2007 the defendants allegedly used corporate names such as "Metropolitan Grapevine LLC," "Metro Dream Homes," "POS Dream Homes," and "POS DH LLC" (collectively, MDH) to target homeowners and home purchasers to participate in a purported mortgage payment program called the "Dream Homes Program." To participate, an investor had to provide a minimum of $50,000 for each home enrolled in the program, in addition to an "administrative fee" of up to $5,000. In exchange, the program promised to make the homeowner's future monthly mortgage payments, and pay off the homeowner's mortgage within five to seven years. Thereafter, the homeowner and MDH would own an equal interest in the home. The indictment alleges that Andrew Hamilton Williams, Jr., 58, of Hollywood, Fla., was the founder and owner of MDH; Michael Anthony Hickson, 46, of Commack, N.Y., was the chief financial officer; Isaac Jerome Smith, 46, of Spotsylvania, Va., was the president; and Alvita Karen Gunn, 31, of Hanover, Md., was the vice president of operations. The information alleges that Carole Nelson, age 50, of Washington, D.C., was the chief financial officer of POS Dream Homes. The indictment further alleges that Dream Homes Program representatives explained to investors that the homeowners' initial payments would be used to fund investments in automated teller machines (ATMs), flat-screen televisions that would show paid business advertisements, and "Touch-N-Buy" electronic kiosks that sold telephone calling cards and other items. To give the Dream Homes Program a veneer of legitimacy and financial success, the defendants marketed the program through live presentations at luxury hotels in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Beverly Hills, Calif., among other locations. The defendants allegedly told some of the investors that they should not worry about the price of the homes or monthly mortgage payments because MDH would make mortgage payments on their behalf.The indictment alleges that the defendants failed to advise investors that: the ATMs, flat-screen televisions and kiosks never generated any meaningful revenue; the defendants used the funds from later investors to pay the mortgages of earlier investors; and MDH had not filed any federal income tax returns throughout its existence. The defendants also allegedly failed to advise investors that their investments were being used for the personal enrichment of select MDH employees, including the defendants, to: pay salaries of up to $200,000 a year as well as their mortgages; employ a staff of 10 chauffeurs and maintain a fleet of luxury cars; and travel to and attend the 2007 National Basketball Association All-Star game and the 2007 National Football League Super Bowl, staying in luxury accommodations in both instances. Nor were investors told that investor funds were allegedly used to: pay off investors in a prior failed ATM investment venture that Williams had founded called Bankcard Group; make multiple donations of up to $50,000 each to charitable organizations to allegedly give MDH the appearance of being financially successful; and fund investments in third-party businesses that had not been disclosed to investors.On Aug. 15, 2007, the Maryland Securities Commissioner issued a cease-and-desist order to Williams, MDH and other related companies directing them to immediately cease the offering and sale of unregistered securities in connection with their promotion of the Dream Homes Program. However, the defendants thereafter allegedly called additional meetings in which they made additional misrepresentations about the financial success of MDH's operations. On Sept. 4, 2007, the defendants filed a legal challenge in federal court in Maryland to the cease-and-desist order. The indictment alleges that at a hearing on Sept. 12, 2007, Hickson testified that the financial success of the Dream Homes Program did not rely upon new investor funds, when in fact Hickson knew that the sole source of meaningful revenue for MDH was new investor funds.As a result of the scheme, more than 1,000 investors in the Dream Homes Program invested approximately $70 million. When the defendants stopped making the mortgage payments, the homeowners were left to attempt to make the mortgage payments MDH had promised to make in full.The four indicted defendants face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for the fraud conspiracy; 20 years in prison on each of the 15 counts of wire fraud; and 20 years in prison for conspiracy to commit money laundering. Hickson also faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison for making false statements. Smith also faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison for bank fraud arising out of his alleged misrepresentation of his income in order to obtain a bank loan to purchase a new Bentley automobile. Nelson was charged by information with money laundering, which carries a maximum penalty of ten years in prison. The indictment seeks forfeiture of the fraud proceeds, including $70 million.An indictment is not a finding of guilt. An individual charged by indictment is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty at some later criminal proceeding.This prosecution is being brought jointly by the Maryland and Washington, D.C. Mortgage Fraud Task Forces, which are comprised of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in Maryland, Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia. The Task Forces were formed to promote the early detection, identification, prevention and prosecution of various kinds of mortgage fraud schemes. This case, as well as other cases brought by members of the Task Forces, demonstrates the commitment of law enforcement agencies to protect consumers from fraud and help to ensure the integrity of the mortgage market and other credit markets. Information about mortgage fraud prosecutions is available on the internet at http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/md/Mortgage-Fraud/index.html.
Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer and U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein praised the FBI, IRS - CI, the Maryland Attorney General's Office, Securities Division and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Office of Inspector General for their investigative work; and thanked Assistant U.S. Attorneys for the District of Maryland Jonathan C. Su and Bryan E. Foreman, who are prosecuting the case.

Ashley Wynn, 28, of Virginia Beach, was sentenced today following her pleading guilty to conspiring to commit credit union fraud

Ashley Wynn, 28, of Virginia Beach, was sentenced today following her pleading guilty to conspiring to commit credit union fraud in federal court in January, the news release said. former finance manager of a used car dealership was sentenced to serve 33 months in prison for defrauding the Navy Federal Credit Union, a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia said.According to court documents, Wynn was working as the finance manager for the Car Store, a now defunct used-car dealership that operated in Virginia Beach. As its finance manager, Wynn regularly obtained car loans for prospective car buyers from Navy Federal by fraudulent means, the news release said.
Specifically, Wynn would assist buyers with poor credit in obtaining financing by preparing false loan applications and documents, concerning a buyer’s income, expenses, employment and living arrangements, and then forwarding the applications to Navy Federal.From August 2007 through May 2008, the credit union made 61 car loans totaling more than $1.1 million that were fraudulently obtained through the Car Store. Navy Federal Credit Union and several insurance companies have suffered losses on these loans totaling more than $500,000, the news release said.

Financier Danny Pang defrauded investors of hundreds of millions of dollars

Financier Danny Pang defrauded investors of hundreds of millions of dollars,obtained a temporary order freezing his assets.As part of the SEC's civil lawsuit filed in federal court in Los Angeles, U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez froze the assets of Mr. Pang and the Irvine, Calif., businesses he ran, Private Equity Management Group Inc. and Private Equity Management Group LLC. The judge also appointed a receiver, Robert P. Mosier, to safeguard the existing assets.
SEC complaint against Pang SEC statement on Pang From the Archive
Highflying Financier Faces Questions 04/15/09Pang Firm Left Some Big Funds Unaudited 04/16/09China Business Leader Linked to Pang 04/17/09Pang Steps Aside as Head of Firm 04/17/09Taiwan Banks Probe PEMGroup Notes 04/23/09The judge ordered Mr. Pang to return money sent overseas and to surrender his passport. The investigation is continuing.Mr. Pang's investment practices came to light in a page-one article earlier this month in The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Pang stepped aside temporarily as chairman and CEO of PEMGroup shortly after the article appeared.The company hired law firm Gibson Dunn & Crutcher to perform an independent investigation. A company spokesman had no immediate comment on the SEC allegations. Mr. Pang, 42 years old, traveled to China two weeks ago for a religious pilgrimage, according to his spokesman.David Schindler, an attorney for Mr. Pang, said his client expects to be fully vindicated. He said Mr. Pang voluntarily returned to the U.S. more than a week ago to cooperate with PEMGroup's internal probe and is committed to saving the company.PEMGroup says it manages $4 billion, but the amount raised in Taiwan, where most of its investors were, was likely no more than $1 billion, according to people close to the matter. Ming-Daw Chang, director of the banking bureau under Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission, said the SEC move "could have a major impact" in Taiwan.

The SEC also accused Mr. Pang of lying about his past, saying PEMGroup falsely represented him as a former merger adviser at Morgan Stanley and said he held an M.B.A. degree from University of California, Irvine. Mr. Pang never worked at Morgan Stanley, nor did he attend or obtain any degrees from UC Irvine, the SEC said.

The SEC alleged Mr. Pang's fraud began at least in 2003 when he raised hundreds of millions of dollars from investors, mostly in Taiwan. Mr. Pang sold investors securities and told them he would earn enough profit to pay them returns through purchasing life-insurance policies at a discount, the SEC said. In truth, the SEC alleged, the life-insurance policies didn't generate enough profit to cover the cost of the premiums or meet the returns he promised to investors. PEMGroup instead paid investors from new money that was supposed to be invested in time-shares, the SEC said.In one instance, PEMGroup presented investors with a forged $108 million insurance policy to support its claim that one investment was entirely covered by insurance, the SEC said. The SEC alleged the insurance policy was for approximately $31 million. When asked by investors to view the policy, the SEC said, Mr. Pang had it altered to increase the amount of the policy. Investors also were shown the "bogus insurance policy" by PEMGroup in order to win their business, it said.Rosalind Tyson, director of the SEC's Los Angeles office, said, "Pang's alleged use of phony credentials and false insurance coverage to guarantee his investments underscores how critical it is for investors to exercise due diligence."

Marc Dreier will enter the plea to securities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering charges

Marc Dreier will enter the plea to securities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering charges, attorney Gerald Shargel told U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff. Manhattan lawyer accused in a $700 million fraud will plead guilty next month to all of the charges he faces, his attorney told a judge Monday.Dreier, 58, will enter the plea on May 11 without a plea deal with the government, meaning he could face a maximum of 30 years to life in prison.
"I wasn't expecting any deal," Shargel said. He said Dreier wanted to "demonstrate his acceptance of responsibility and his profound remorse." Until December, Dreier had led a law firm, Dreier LLP, with 250 attorneys and celebrity clients. He was arrested after hedge funds complained he was stealing from them. Dreier has remained under house arrest and was not in court Monday. He was first arrested on impersonation charges in Canada in early December before he flew to New York City, where U.S. authorities arrested him at the airport. A court-appointed receiver, Mark Pomerantz, has said Dreier received $670 million between 2004 and 2008 from the sale of fictitious securities. Dreier was accused of spending much of it on a lavish lifestyle that included millions of dollars in artwork, beachfront homes on both coasts and the yacht, "Lady Seascape." The receiver has said Dreier's law firm, despite appearances of profitability including rapid growth and new construction, was actually losing enormous amounts of money.
Among assets described in court papers by the receiver was an extensive fine art collection worth about $39 million, a $10 million Manhattan apartment and three properties in the Hamptons and an $18.5 million yacht, "Lady Seascape." Prosecutors say $400 million of the $700 million involved in the fraud was missing, but Pomerantz has said he has since identified $100 million in assets. That leaves $300 million missin

Yang Zhen Xing and his girlfriend Zhou Xi, both 25, had 233,690 pounds pass through their bank accounts but there was no sign of the cash

Yang Zhen Xing and his girlfriend Zhou Xi, both 25, had 233,690 pounds pass through their bank accounts but there was no sign of the cash when their bodies were found, Newcastle Crown Court heard.
Cao Guang Hui, 30, denies murdering the couple after robbing them, perhaps with others, last August.
Zhou, known as Cici, and Yang, also called Kevin, had mobile phones and a laptop computer taken from their ground floor flat.
The level of violence used was not even remotely necessary to take those items, according to prosecution lawyer Robert Smith.
The court heard that Yang made a living from selling false educational certificates and from his involvement in a fraudulent Internet betting scam.His declared annual income was just 3,000 pounds while his girlfriend earned 14,000 pounds a year as a waitress, but police found hundreds of thousands of pounds passed through their bank accounts.Yet when officers searched the murder scene, they found just 10 pounds. It was unclear whether cash was stolen on the day, the court heard.Zhou came to Britain as a student in June 2005, and her boyfriend arrived in 2003 to study English and accounting in Cardiff, Wales. They met in Newcastle.
Zhou was found face down on a bed in their flat with her wrists bound with tape and towelling stuffed into her mouth that caused her to suffocate. She was also hit over the head with a heavy weapon, possibly a hammer.Yang was found in the other bedroom, having been hit with a hammer in the face and head. His throat was slashed despite already being unconscious.Smith said the wound may have been to accelerate Yang's death, and the head injuries inflicted on Cici were done to ensure she died also.
After the murders, Cao changed his clothes and stole three mobile phones and a laptop, the court heard. The phones were found dumped nearby and when examined, revealed contact between him and the couple.The court heard Cao, who came to Britain in 2001 to study English and followed the trial with the help of a translator, pretended to want to sub-let a room in their flat.Cao was arrested and Yang's blood was found on his glasses. More blood was found in his watch, the jury heard.
The case continues.

Angus Weaver, 52, teamed up with 83-year-old Dennis Hancox to produce bogus £20 notes and euros, complete with embossed strips and holograms

Angus Weaver, 52, teamed up with 83-year-old Dennis Hancox to produce bogus £20 notes and euros, complete with embossed strips and holograms, in an operation that began in Glasgow.Weaver's gang had circulated millions in fake euros with identical serial numbers before surveillance officers from the Serious Organised Crime Agency swooped on the 10 men in October 2007, Snaresbrook Crown Court heard.The operation had begun in Glasgow a year earlier, using equipment at Print Link, in St George's Road, Kelvingrove.
The men worked with Thomas McAnea, 58, a Glaswegian printer and veteran forger known as "Hologram Tam", who was jailed in 2007.Sophisticated software was used to scan images of the notes, remove the silver strip and hologram, and emboss them back onto fake notes.After a meeting at Claridge's Hotel in London, production was moved from Scotland to the English capital. A £12,500 machine was installed in Hancox's house in Chiswick, where the forged notes could be foiled and finished.Officers watched as the gang regularly met up in the South Acton Working Men's Club.
Yesterday Judge William Kennedy jailed Weaver, of Bethnal Green, for 52 months. He had admitted three counterfeiting charges.
The judge said the sentence would have been more had he not pleaded guilty.At an earlier hearing, Hancox was given a nine-month jail term, suspended for a year, and five other men were sentenced for their parts in the operation.James Watson, 58, of Hoddam Avenue, Castlemilk, Glasgow, will be sentenced on Friday. He has admitted two counterfeiting charges.

2,800 organised criminal gangs, British law enforcement is ill-equipped to deal with the threat that they pose.

2,800 organised criminal gangs, British law enforcement is ill-equipped to deal with the threat that they pose. an official report revealing the finding by intelligence analysts. It was completed six months ago but marked “restricted” and circulated only to ministers and police chiefs. After a freedom of information request, it was made available this month in edited form. Issued by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, it is the first time that officials have disclosed the true scale of the gangland threat and made the frank admission that they are struggling to cope with it.
The report states: “The UK law enforcement community now knows more about organised criminality than ever before. Worryingly, though, this increased knowledge has highlighted the need for a more effective response by the police and other agencies. The reach of organised criminality is more extensive than previously acknowledged . . . from local teams of criminals engaged in drug dealing and acquisitive crime through to international gangs committing acts of large-scale importation, kidnap, fraud and corruption.” The report, Getting Organised, predicts that the threat from organised crime will increase, with syndicates using the London 2012 Olympics to exploit opportunities for sex trafficking and illegal immigration. About 60 per cent of gangs are involved in drug dealing, two thirds engage in a range of criminal activities and all are characterised by an “ever-present willingness to use extreme violence to secure and protect profits”.
The report contrasts the nationwide spread of organised crime — from the inner cities to the shires — with the disjointed reaction of police and the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca). Britain’s response is described as “blighted” by a lack of direction, inadequate surveillance and under-investment in intelligence, analysis and enforcement. Passages edited out before publication are understood to include critical assessments of the ability of some police forces to deal with organised crime. The report does state: “The capability of individual forces is extremely variable . . . there is much work to be done.” There is no direct criticism of Soca, launched in 2006, but the findings add up to a scathing verdict on its failure to satisfy live up to its billing as Britain’s FBI. The biggest concentrations of crime syndicates are in London and the North West, with criminals there controlling satellite gangs elsewhere in the country. The scale of the threat is better understood but there is no firm grasp of how the gangs operate and interact. The law enforcement approach is also found to lack cohesion and co-ordination. The report says: “A number of groups and bodies are competing to set directions and priorities for the service, reporting to different Home Office directorates and, in the case of HM Revenue and Customs, a different ministry.” Without a national approach to the organised crime threat, the policing response would be “reactive, localised and ultimately ineffective”. The model of national leadership and collaboration pioneered in counter-terrorism should be copied to deal with organised crime, the report says. Vernon Coaker, the Home Office minister, said that he had earmarked £3 million for the areas facing the worst organised crime threat after reading the report. “I am determined to protect the public from serious organised crime. We have also brought together law enforcement partners through the Organised Crime Partnership Board to drive improvements in this area. A cross-government ministerial group will ensure that good progress is made,” he said.
A Soca spokesman said that the report was “a welcome contribution to the debate about how law enforcement can best tackle the complex and wideranging threats posed to the UK by organised crime”.

Moscow police are searching for two men who attacked a car repair cashier and made off with a bag containing 2 million rubles ($59,608),

Moscow police are searching for two men who attacked a car repair cashier and made off with a bag containing 2 million rubles ($59,608), a police source told RIA Novosti on Monday. According to the source, the robbery occurred in Moscow's south on Sunday when the cashier and her husband approached the entrance to their apartment. "The robbers used the threat of physical force and took the bag with 2 million rubles that belonged to the [car service] company and fled," the source said. The source said a criminal case may be opened over the incident.

The Black Widow is being released from a Florida jail this weekend and will be deported to Canada.

The Black Widow is being released from a Florida jail this weekend and will be deported to Canada.In 2005, Melissa Ann Friedrich was sentenced to five years in prison on seven counts of theft from a man in Florida she had met on the Internet.According to investigators, Friedrich stole about US$20,000 from Alexander Strategos.Court heard Friedrich met him on a dating website, drove south from Canada and moved into his Florida condominium.In 2001, she was convicted of manslaughter in the death of her second husband, Gordon Stewart, whom Friedrich had drugged and run over twice with a car in 1991 outside Halifax.The woman claimed she had been abused by Stewart.She later served two years of a six-year sentence for that crime.Robert Friedrich of Bradenton, Fla., her third husband, died in December 2002 at age 84.The 73-year-old woman, who once lived in Pictou County, was facing a single fraud charge in New Glasgow but the charge was dropped Thursday, CTV reported.

Antonnette Haughton-Cardenas is accused of collecting $12 million from several residents in Fort district, Leith Hall, St Thomas

Antonnette Haughton-Cardenas was charged by the police in Yallahs, St Thomas, on Wednesday with two counts of fraudulent conversion.
The lawyer is accused of collecting $12 million from several residents in Fort district, Leith Hall, St Thomas, between 1990 and 2002, but failed to honour her obligations. Reports were made to the police and statements collected. Following investigations, the attorney was charged when she turned up at the Yallahs Resident Magistrate's Court. She was granted $100,000 station bail with a surety and will appear in the court on April 16.

Sara Shea, 30, who admitted money laundering, was jailed for two years by Liverpool Crown Court.

Shea sashayed through Liverpool society draped head-to-toe in designer labels alongside her husband Keith, 36, a bullet-headed gangster who moved drugs worth millions around the country. In two years they spent £100,000 on his and hers diamond-encrusted watches, thought nothing of blowing £850 on Cristal champagne, and were planning a move to an £800,000 mansion in Caldy, Wirral, known as Footballers' Row. Sara Shea, 30, who admitted money laundering, was jailed for two years by Liverpool Crown Court. The judge said he hoped that the sentence would deter other families of criminals from encouraging and supporting their activities. “Your husband was a drug trafficker on a huge scale yet you chose to turn a blind eye and to ask no questions,” David Harris, QC, said. Shea's life of luxury ended in June 2007 when her husband was arrested in the act of moving cocaine and Ecstasy with a street value of £4.5 million. He was convicted of drug trafficking and jailed for 15 years.
When police raided their home in Wallasey, Merseyside, they recovered a Scorpion machine pistol and other firearms but were astonished by the treasure trove of goods amassed from the world's fashion houses. Officers found boxes of Rolex, Patek Philippe and Chopard watches and Christian Dior and Chanel jewellery worth hundreds of thousands of pounds scattered from room to room. All had been bought in cash so as not to leave a paper trail. Stuffed into a cupboard were designer handbags worth £12,000.

Detectives pieced together a life of spending, with holidays in Monte Carlo, Mexico and Marbella. A photograph showed the couple enjoying a honeymoon stroll on a beach beside the Sandy Lane Hotel in Barbados. Flights alone cost £12,500. They once took a chauffeur-driven Mercedes from their home to Claridge's in London where they spent £6,000 on a weekend stay. The bill for a meal at the Oxo Tower came to £1,095.

Merseyside Police hope that the prosecution of drug dealers' partners will send out a message that officers will pursue not only criminals but their wives and wider families who have been happy to enjoy the fruits of their criminality. Diane Smith, 52, the lover of another drug trafficker, Silvano Turchett, has already been given a 45-week prison sentence, suspended for two years, on a similar charge of looking after watches worth £42,000 for her boyfriend. Detective Constable Elaine Moore, in charge of the money-laundering inquiry codenamed Operation Rockwood, said that the police were determined to strip the couple of the proceeds of crime, even if they had to wait until Shea was released from prison. “We want to show that crime does not pay,” she said. “Instead of going to a restaurant at the top of the Oxo Tower, Shea is now eating off a tin plate ... Anybody, whether family member or partner, should remember one thing – Merseyside Police will be relentless in hunting them down and bringing them to justice.”
The Sheas' detached home, with its wall-mounted Bang & Olufsen television in the steam room, has long been repossessed, along with their collection of high-performance cars. A forthcoming confiscation case is expected to strip the couple of their remaining fortune. Shea made it clear to the court before she was jailed that she intended to divorce her husband and find a job on her release. She worked in Debenhams in the run-up to her court appearance. Merseyside Police have seized more criminals' assets than any other force apart from the Metropolitan Police, securing nearly £5.5 million cash and confiscating goods worth £12 million in the past two years.

The ill-gotten gains Among the items found at the Sheas' home was a collection of designer handbags worth £12,000 The couple once took a chauffeur-driven Mercedes from their home to Claridge's in London where they spent £6,000 on a weekend stay and a meal in Gordon Ramsay's in-house restaurant They ran up a £1,095 bill at the Oxo Tower restaurant in Central London, including £850 on a bottle of Cristal champagne On their driveway stood a £110,000 Aston Martin, a £46,500 4x4 BMW X5 and a Range Rover They took guests to £5,000 hospitality packages at the Open golf at Hoylake, rock concerts at the MEN Arena and other events
Shea was arrested before they took a £33,000 cruise to the World Cup cricket in Barbados and a grand prix trip to Monaco for which a £6,000 cash deposit was paid
They spent £100,000 on his and hers watches that were encrusted with diamonds. Police officers also found boxes packed full of Rolex, Patek Philippe and Chopard watches

Lawrence B. Salander, 59, owner of the now-defunct Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, was indicted on multiple charges

Lawrence B. Salander, 59, owner of the now-defunct Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, was indicted on multiple charges, including grand larceny, securities fraud, forgery, criminal possession of a forged instrument, falsifying business records and perjury.
He defrauded 26 victims, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said in a statement."Salander stole from his victims in two primary ways: He sold artwork not owned by him and kept the money, and lured investment money in fraudulent investment opportunities," Morgenthau said.In other cases, Salander inflated the estimated cost of artwork, oversold shares in works, claimed to own works he did not, and misrepresented or failed to pay the full return on sales when money came in, authorities said.In one instance, to secure a $2 million personal loan from Bank of America, Salander offered pieces owned by others, including McEnroe, as security by providing phony documents to establish that he and his wife owned the art, Morgenthau said.Salander's lawyer Charles Ross told CNN affiliate NY - One that his client is trying to raise money for bail, which was set at $1 million."He has been aware that there is an investigation for quite some time and he has prepared for this day," Ross told NY - One. "And as I said, he entered a not-guilty plea and we're gonna fight the charges."
The scheme funded a lifestyle that included trips to Europe by private jet, and the purchase of a Manhattan townhouse and a 66-acre estate in upstate New York, officials said.Salander's indictment points to dealings dating to 1994. If convicted, he would face up to 25 years in prison for grand larceny and additional time for other charges.Salander-O'Reilly Galleries went bankrupt in 2007 after more than 30 years of operation.

Brent Mueller, of Edmond, had pled guilty to failing to report the illegal taking of $1 million from Oklahoma City’s Quest Resources Corporation.

Brent Mueller, of Edmond, had pled guilty to failing to report the illegal taking of $1 million from Oklahoma City’s Quest Resources Corporation.Mueller is the former purchasing director for Quest. In court, Mueller admitted that in the summer of 2008, he learned that a now former senior Quest executive had illegally wired $1 million out of Quest to use for personal investment in Oklahoma Hydrogen Gas Technologies.Upon learning of that illegal conduct Mueller admitted he took several steps to cover up that crime, including lying to Oklahoma Hydrogen about the source of the investment and trying to recover the $1 million to prevent Quest from learning about it, court officials said.Mueller also finds himself a defendant in a lawsuit filed by Quest earlier this month in Oklahoma County District Court. The suit also names David E. Grose, of Edmond, among others. It sought an asset freeze and damages related to the kickbacks and the misappropriation.Grose, Quest’s former chief financial officer, also is a defendant in a lawsuit filed last month in Oklahoma County District Court by the Oklahoma Department of Securities. The lawsuit alleges that Grose directly participated and/or materially aided Jerry Cash, the company’s former chief executive offer, in connection with the unauthorized transfer of $10 million to an entity controlled by Cash. The lawsuit alleges that Grose and Mueller received kickbacks from several related suppliers during a two-year period. The lawsuit also alleges that in the third quarter of 2008, Grose and Mueller engaged in the direct theft of $1 million for their personal use.
Bill Price, Mueller’s attorney, said he does not comment on pending litigation.James McMillin, Grose’s attorney, also declined comment for the same reason. In court, Grose stated that because there was an ongoing investigation, he invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self incrimination.Mueller will be sentenced in about 90 days. He faces up to three years in prison and, as part of the plea agreement, he must pay restitution to the victims of his crime.
Dan Webber, Cash’s attorney, said his client asserts that he is innocent until proven guilty. Webber said Cash is working with the Oklahoma Securities Commission to clarify the underlying facts.Webber said Cash is not connected to the kickback scheme associated with Grose and Mueller.According to court papers, Grose has 25 years of financial experience, primarily in the exploration, production and drilling sectors of the gas and oil industry, and his positions with Quest and Quest Energy included CFO and principal accounting officer.Grose and Mueller entered a conspiracy with defendant Rodger H. Brooks in which they would place orders for Quest to buy pipe from Brooks’ companies — Reliable Pipe and Equipment, Mid Continent Pipe and Equipment, RHB Global and RHB, the Quest lawsuit alleges. Grose and Mueller would mark up the price of the pipe and they would split the amount.Grose received about $850,000 in kickbacks and Mueller about $860,000, Quest alleges. Grose and Mueller used the kickbacks and funds they wrongfully converted and fraudulently obtained for their personal use and to support an extravagant lifestyle, including the purchase of homes, boats and cars, Quest alleges. Attempts to identify Brooks’ attorney by press time were not successful. Beginning in at least 2005, Cash caused Quest money to be transferred to a bank account in the name of Rockport Energy, the Oklahoma Securities Commission lawsuit alleges. Grose allegedly assisted Cash with the transfers into the Rockport account by authorizing and/or effecting the wire transfers. By July 2008, transfers to the account from Quest totaled $10 million.Cash had sole signatory authority over the Rockport account, and he allegedly spent the Quest money from the account for personal expenses and/or other business activities not related to Quest.To create the illusion that the money transferred to Rockport Energy was returned to Quest, Cash directed a series of suspicious financial transactions between the two companies, the lawsuit alleges.Specifically, on or within a day of the end of each Quest fiscal quarter, Cash allegedly issued a check drawn on the Rockport account, made payable to a Quest entity. The check would then be deposited into the bank account of the payee.
At all times, the balance on the Rockport account at the time each check was issued contained insufficient funds, according to court papers. The balance on the account rarely exceeded $2,000.Within days of the end of each Quest fiscal quarter, Cash directed that Quest funds, in an amount identical to the amount of the recent check from Rockport Energy, be wired to the Rockport account enabling each of the account checks to clear the bank.Grose directly participated in the fraudulent quarter-end transactions by authorizing and/or effecting the wire transfers from Quest to the Rockport account, the Oklahoma Securities Commission alleges.
The transactions between Rockport Energy and Quest were not disclosed in filings by Quest with the Securities and Exchange Commission, court papers show.

Sentenced Ahmad Kanan, 37, of Essex Junction to 37 months' imprisonment for bank, wire and tax fraud

Sentenced Ahmad Kanan, 37, of Essex Junction to 37 months' imprisonment for bank, wire and tax fraud, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney Office, District of Vermont. Kanan was also ordered to pay $213,000 in restitution and sentenced to five years of supervised release after the completion of his prison term. Court documents indicate Kanan, using stolen identities of about 36 victims, filed fraudulent tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service and several state tax agencies in order to obtain refunds. Acting U.S. Attorney Paul J. Van de Graaf commended the collaboration of the Internal Revenue Service, the Secret Service, the Department of Homeland Security, the Office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Essex Junction Police Department.

Agency liquidating Bernard Madoff’s brokerage says the $2.6 billion it has on hand is enough to satisfy all legitimate claims by victims of the money

“I have confidence there is sufficient money at SIPC to satisfy all claims,” he said in a phone interview.

Agency liquidating Bernard Madoff’s brokerage says the $2.6 billion it has on hand is enough to satisfy all legitimate claims by victims of the money manager’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme. The Securities Investor Protection Corp. is using a formula that investors may challenge in court. The agency has the money in an industry-financed fund and from recovered assets to reimburse Madoff’s 5,000 customers to the maximum allowed by its charter, Stephen Harbeck, SIPC president, said in an interview. The SIPC has $1.6 billion in a fund designed to reimburse customers as much as $500,000 on lost investments, plus $1 billion recovered by brokerage trustee Irving Picard from Madoff firm bank accounts and desk drawers, Harbeck said. Madoff, 70, is in jail facing a 150-year sentence after pleading guilty March 12 to using money from new investors to pay off old ones in a global fraud that snared investors as varied as filmmaker Steven Spielberg and New York University. Prosecutors are seeking $170 billion in forfeitures from him, representing funds that flowed through his company. They have identified more than $100 million of his houses, cars, boats and jewelry they intend to seize. Some Madoff investors are up in arms about SIPC’s decision, announced by Picard at a Feb. 20 creditors’ meeting, to limit victim claims to “net equity” -- cash invested minus sums taken out. That formula ignores profit reported on customer brokerage statements for the past 20 years, gains that were fictitious because Picard found no evidence Madoff had made any trades or profits going back decades. Customers paid taxes on those phantom profits and “legitimately expected” that they owned the securities listed in official brokerage statements, said Helen Chaitman, a Madoff victim and lawyer with Phillips Nizer LLP who is advising 350 investors in the fraud without charge. The Securities Investor Protection Act, passed in 1970 to safeguard investor accounts and maintain confidence in the market, encourages SIPC to honor customers’ “reasonable expectations” by compensating them for lost profit as well as principal, said Chaitman, other victims and legal experts. In a similar case, involving a fraud at bankrupt New Times Securities Services Inc., a federal judge in New York, where Madoff’s firm is based, ordered SIPC in 2002 to pay $500,000 to customers whose statements reported nonexistent trades by actual mutual funds. An appeals court reversed that ruling in a 2004 precedent that Picard relies on. “Picard is behaving like a true insurance representative,” said Chaitman, who said she lost her “entire retirement” by investing with Madoff. “SIPC is being creative about not having to pay people the money to which they’re entitled.” Groups of victims and their lawyers are debating whether to seek a declaratory judgment in court that Picard is misinterpreting the law or a lawsuit to bar him from using his current formula to pay claims, said Lawrence Velvel, a customer who is dean of the Massachusetts School of Law. “There will be challenges to what Picard is doing,” said Velvel, who said he lost “a large chunk of savings” in the Ponzi scheme. “The only question is timing.”

The Biondi family partnership, which lost “under $1 million” with Madoff, hasn’t filed a claim with SIPC yet, said Adriane Biondi, 41, who lives with a friend in Florida after losing all her money. “We need to understand our strategies,” said Biondi, part of a group being advised by Chaitman.

Leading Precedent In the New Times case, a federal district court said investors were entitled to maximum $500,000 payments from SIPC if statements reflected investments in genuine mutual funds, while customers whose records cited fictitious mutual funds were only entitled to $100,000, the SIPC limit for cash initially invested.
In its 2004 ruling, the federal appeals court disagreed, finding customers should get back money they invested and not “artificial” returns reported in “fictitious account statements.” It adopted an argument by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which exercises oversight, that SIPC would be “unacceptably exposed” if it had to pay customers “arbitrary amounts that necessarily have no relation to reality.” Biondi said she understood SIPC protection as a form of insurance that covered her family partnership losses. “Now they’re going to deduct money from my claim,” she said. “If you were to pay her based on fictitious, phony profits, there would be less money to distribute to someone who has lost principal,” Harbeck said. To date, Picard has authorized payments to 12 claimants of $500,000 each, according to his Web site, www.madofftrustee.com. Chaitman asked Picard and Harbeck, in a March 26 e-mail, “that you post on your Web site on a daily basis the number of claims that you have received, the number of claims you have processed, and the amount of funds SIPC has paid out.”

“In view of the desperate financial circumstances of many of the investors, we would like to know your position on establishing an expedited procedure for paying investors the sums to which they are entitled,” she said in the e-mail.

Sharon Lissauer, a multilingual former model for Leggs Pantyhose who lost her savings from modeling and her inheritance from her mother in a Madoff account, is seeking work to pay her bills while waiting for a letter from Picard that will entitle her to some payment. “There’s been no letter yet,” she said. “Modeling is slow, and I’m having trouble paying my bills.” Jonathan Landers, a lawyer with Milberg LLP, which represents more than 70 victims, said he’ll probably wait until Picard rejects a client’s claim before taking legal action. Courts are reluctant to render advisory opinions and “often get bogged down in questions of whether the case is ripe for decision,” he said. “We are going to wait until we have an actual case with a flesh and blood person to present to the court,” he said. “The court will then face the issue squarely.” He isn’t planning a group lawsuit, or class action, although some groups may join his clients’ effort later, he said. Meanwhile, Milberg plans to file a petition to force Bernard Madoff into personal bankruptcy, Landers said. While Madoff’s company is being liquidated by Picard, the convicted fraudster isn’t in his own bankruptcy proceedings. Lander’s theory: Under bankruptcy law, it may be easier to reach Madoff’s assets that have been transferred to his family or friends, he said. Landers’ advice to his clients has been to file a claim for what is owed according to the last customer statement, including reinvested profits. One of his clients, part of an informal committee of victims, has a $30 million claim. 31 Picard’s rule that payouts will equal cash invested minus cash taken out would unfairly penalize Madoff clients who withdrew funds to pay taxes on reported profit, as well as older investors with IRAs who were forced by law to start withdrawing money when they turned 71, he said. Some customers are “petrified” of Picard’s plan to seek so-called clawbacks on money they took out over the years that exceeded their principal, Chaitman said. “In dire need,” such customers aren’t filing claims in case information they provide gives Picard a “roadmap to clawbacks”, she said. Under New York law, Picard can seek return of redeemed false profits going back six years. Picard’s counsel David Sheehan said at the February creditors’ meeting. “It was all made-up profit” he said. “So you got somebody else’s money.” Kevin McCue, a spokesman for Picard at the law firm Baker Hostetler LLP in New York, didn’t have an immediate response to requests for comment on investor complaints.

Five clerks are accused of saying the tickets were losers and offering to throw them away

Five clerks are accused of saying the tickets were losers and offering to throw them away. They then tried to cash in the tickets, either themselves or with an accomplice. Eight people were charged in Ramsey County with felony lottery fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $25,000 fine.
Lottery executive director Clint Harris said he wasn’t pleased with the five stores that failed, but he was proud that most employees resisted the temptation to lie.He said a similar test in California found that 18 percent of 450 stores that were checked broke the law. Minnesota lottery officials hope to continue the checks and expand them outside the Twin Cities.Lottery officials said it’s a good idea to sign the back of the ticket before trying to cash it. And 1,600 of the state’s 3,100 lottery retailers have electronic ticket scanners, so players can use those rather than relying on the clerk.

Indictments for Donald Joseph Dean, 44, of Tyler; Michael Day Lamont, 30 ,of Allen; and Carl Tinsley Ratner, 52,

Indictments for Donald Joseph Dean, 44, of Tyler; Michael Day Lamont, 30 ,of Allen; and Carl Tinsley Ratner, 52, address unknown.
Hunt County District Attorney Noble D. Walker Jr. said his office did not handle the investigations and that the grand jury was presented with the cases by a special prosecutor associated with the Securities Commission of Texas.All three individuals received indictments for engaging in organized criminal activity, acting as an unregistered dealer and selling unregistered securities. Dean and Ratner was also indicted for securities fraud.The engaging in organized criminal activity indictments allege that the three defendants, three more people named in the indictments, “and others”, between March 21, 2006 and Nov. 14, 2007, were involved in theft of property offenses in which the aggregate amount of the value of the stolen property totaled $200,000 or more; were involved in securing execution of document by deception offenses of which the aggregate affected the pecuniary interest of others in the amount of $200,000 or more; and also were involved in money laundering offenses in which the aggregate criminal proceeds totaled $200,000 or more.The unregistered dealer or agent indictments allege the three offered to make or made sales of securities to three individuals on three occasions during 2006, “without being duly registered as a securities dealer or agent by and with the Securities Commission of Texas.”The final indictment against all three defendants allege the securities they offered for sale were also not registered with the Commission.

Under the securities fraud indictments, Dean and Ratner were alleged to have on Aug. 24, 2006 offered for sale interests in the Mack Diamond Energy LLC, Honey Grove Single Well Joint Venture, an oil or gas mining lease or title, while not disclosing the funds raised were not used for those purposes.

Mack Diamond Energy is a company based in Wolfe City, which was the basis of two recent lawsuits.

Cypress Consulting of Houston sued Mack Diamond Energy Group in August 2006, claiming the seismic data it provided, for which it charged Mack Diamond $183,436.45, was paid for by a check which bounced. The company was initially suing for more than $265,000 in damages and interest, then later adjusted the suit to credit Mack Diamond for $184,000 in payments. The two parties were reported to have reached an agreement in May 2007 and the suit was dropped.
Joe R. Owen of Dallas, one of the persons named as a victim in the grand jury indictments issued Friday, filed suit against Mack Diamond in Dallas County, with the venue later transferred to Hunt County.Owen said he was offered investments over the Internet and telephone and invested $137,500. Owens wanted the investment rescinded, alleging Mack Diamond provided misrepresentations concerning purchases of oil and gas securities.The company issued a general denial of Owens’ claims.
The suit indicated C. Mack Hays, the founder of Mack Diamond Energy, died on March 5, 2008 and the complaint was dismissed in January of this year.

Lance K. Poulsen, a founder of National Century Financial Enterprises, had nothing to say as he stood in prison garb and shackles

Lance K. Poulsen, a founder of National Century Financial Enterprises, had nothing to say as he stood in prison garb and shackles before U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley and heard that he'd likely spend the rest of his life in federal prison.
"Mr. Poulsen was the architect of the fraud," Marbley said before sentencing the 65-year-old Poulsen to 30 years. The scheme he masterminded stole $2.4 billion from investors, shut down 275 health-care providers and enriched its conspirators by millions of dollars.Poulsen was the last major executive of the Dublin-based company to be sentenced, and he got the stiffest term.Marbley also sentenced National Century founder Rebecca S. Parrett, who disappeared after her trial last March, to 25 years for nine fraud-related charges yesterday. Officials said the hunt for Parrett, 60, continues."For the victims in this case, with these verdicts, there is a sense of justice," said an exuberant Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas W. Squires after five hours of sentencing hearings yesterday.Those actions ended the bulk of a several-year investigation into National Century fraud.Poulsen, who was chief executive officer of National Century, was convicted in October of fraud and money laundering. He also was found guilty last year of witness tampering and obstruction of justice, along with his friend Karl A. Demmler, for trying to persuade key prosecution witness Sherry Gibson to feign amnesia when questioned in court.Gibson was wearing a wire during conversations with Demmler, who owned the Bogey Inn restaurant in Dublin.Yesterday, Marbley sentenced Demmler, 57, to seven years in prison for his actions. The judge had sentenced Poulsen to 10 years in that case, and that sentence will be served at the same time as his 30-year sentence.Demmler, also in shackles and prison garb, apologized in court for his actions and statements, which included saying that he'd like to cut up a bankruptcy judge "and feed him to the fish."He said his comments had been "taken entirely out of context" and that he had been "misled" by many people."I don't believe I was evil in this case," he said.Of the three sentenced yesterday, Demmler was the only one whose friends and family made statements in court.
His mother, Norma Demmler, 76, begged the judge to give him probation."I just want my son home. I hope you can help me," she said.However, Marbley said that although Demmler was "used and manipulated" by Poulsen, his "culpability was not inconsequential or slight" and his offense "goes to the very core of our system of justice."Demmler will get credit for 18 months in jail and on house arrest.The judge saved his harshest words for Poulsen, who said throughout his trial that he knew nothing of the fraud. Poulsen blamed investors for not catching the illegal acts."That's like the wolf blaming the hens for getting out of the hen house," Marbley chided him. "Nothing happened at National Century without your blessing."Marbley said it's impossible to know why Poulsen, a successful entrepreneur with children and a wife, went down the wrong path."Avarice and greed apparently took hold and clouded his judgment," the judge said. "He amassed significant wealth and thousands of investors suffered."Besides the prison time, the sentence for Poulsen and the others found guilty in the fraud case includes restitution of $2.4 billion.Squires said the federal government will be aggressively seeking that money by seizing goods, property, investments and pensions from the guilty. This week, the government seized nearly $400,000 from an account Parrett had in Arizona.In sentencing Parrett, Marbley said she is the only defendant in his 12 years on the bench who absconded after he presided over their trial."I believe, as justice is always served, she will be found," he said.National Century bought accounts receivable from health-care providers and charged a fee to collect what was owed. It raised money by selling bonds to investors. The fraud took place for seven years, beginning in 1995, when the company paid out millions of dollars without purchasing the accounts to back the loans. The company went bankrupt in 2002.
Squires said agents from the FBI and several other agencies "sifted through a warehouse of documents" to piece together the evidence in the case.Marbley said he meted out long sentences not just as punishment for those involved but to discourage other white-collar criminals.One National Century defendant, Brian J. Stucke, pleaded guilty to one count in 2003 and has not yet been sentenced.

Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey announced that he will use the state's organized-crime law to prosecute the gang members

Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey announced that he will use the state's organized-crime law to prosecute the gang members. He said weapons and narcotics charges also would be filed. "This is an organized gang," said Morrissey. "Like any other organized crime group, they were using guns and drugs to generate the money they needed to keep the organization going." With their activities came violence and rip-offs, said the district attorney. Among the narcotics seized today were more than 2,600 Ecstasy pills as well as cocaine, methamphetamine and mushrooms.
During the nine-month investigation, agents seized numerous weapons used by the gang, including four semi-automatic pistols and two assault rifles, said Luke Franey, assistant special agent in charge of the ATF office in Denver. "One of those pistols was stolen from a federally licensed firearms dealer in Wyoming during a burglary of that establishment," said Franey. "I think it is common when you work with groups like this that you recover stolen firearms and assault weapons."
Kevin Paletta, the Lakewood police chief, said that arresting the group has made the streets safer. "This is a very active group, particularly along the Denver-Lakewood border. They are a violent group," said Paletta. "Getting these folks off the street not only prevented future crimes, but I'm confident they prevented future acts of violence."
The officials said that they have increasingly seen taggers develop into violent crime gangs in the metropolitan area. Deputy Denver Police Chief Michael Battista said that investigators have noticed tagging crews that "graduate into the criminal activity of narcotics and then into the more violent crimes." "I think one of the messages with this group — to see a tagger group evolve into violent organized crime like this — is that it is very concerning," said Morrissey.
"I think a lot of people think they can just walk up to a tagger, and it's just going to be a kid who they can stop from tagging their fence. I think they need to understand that there is a potential that a tagger may be armed and that a tagger would get violent," said Morrissey. Morrissey said the investigation nine months ago started as the result of an investigation of another group of taggers, who were rivals. Authorities quickly decided they needed to start an investigation of the first group and were able to "develop the evidence, make the buys, get the guns and recover the narcotics" necessary to make the arrests made today, said Morrissey. Arrested today were Joshua Yarmon, 20; Guadalupe Trujillo, 38; Gabriel Sears, 20; Stephanie Johnson, 23; Jesse Romero, 23; Rodrigo Padilla, 26; alleged ringleader Isaiah Lunas, 22; and Merina Valenzuela, 19. Police are still searching for Anthony Bernard, 32, and Stephen Oliver, 21.
Bail was set for six of those arrested: Four are being held on $1 million bail, two on $250,000 bail.

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Police raided the headquarters of Anglo Irish Bank in Dublin yesterday morning

Countdown to raid on Anglo:May 2007 Anglo Irish Bank’s shares peak at more than €17 each
July 2008 A so-called “golden circle” of ten investors secretly buys a 10 per cent stake in the bank
September 30 Government unveils a €400 billion guarantee scheme for six banks, including Anglo Irish
December 18 Sean FitzPatrick, the chairman, resigns and admits he hid more than €80 million in secret loans from shareholders
Decemeber 19 David Drumm, the chief executive, resigns
December 21 Government recapitalises Anglo with €1.5 billion
December 29 Shares plummet to 12 cents
January 15, 2009 The Government is forced to nationalise Anglo
January 16 Shareholders call for the board to be sacked
January 19 Five board members resign
February 10 Irish Life & Permanent’s €7 billion deposit to boost Anglo’s balance sheet is revealed
February 20 Donal O’Connor, the new executive chairman, reveals that it gave loans worth €451 million to ten customers last year to buy shares in the bank. A report finds that Anglo has 15 customers who owe it more than €500 million each
February 24 Investigators raid Anglo’s Dublin offices

Police raided the headquarters of Anglo Irish Bank in Dublin yesterday morning, compounding the economic woes of the Irish Republic and helping to send its stock market to a 14-year low. The troubled bank was raided by the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE), supported by about 25 police officers. The bank has a significant exposure to the falling British property market. The regulator said that, among other suspected irregularities, it was investigating the unwinding of significant contracts for difference.

Anglo Irish Bank, which was nationalised last month, is at the centre of a series of corporate scandals. Sean FitzPatrick, its former chairman and chief executive, resigned in December after admitting that he had failed to disclose an €87 million (£77 million) loan that he had repeatedly moved in and out of the bank over eight years.

Anglo Irish is also at the centre of a loans-for-shares scandal involving ten of its biggest clients, and there are allegations of share-price manipulation and of irregularities over loans to its directors, as well as claims that the bank used multibillion-euro transfers from Irish Life & Permanent to boost its deposit base improperly. About 120,000 people took to Dublin’s streets last weekend to protest against the Government’s handling of the financial crisis afflicting the nation.
Last night the Government vowed to prosecute those who jeopardised the country’s financial stability. Dermot Ahern, the Justice Minister, said: “Legislation is in place to bring to justice those who may have played hard and fast with the financial security of this country. The Government will go after banking chiefs involved in wrongdoing that has tarnished the country’s reputation internationally.
“We operate the rule of law. That provides that whether you have a balaclava, a sawn-off shotgun or a white collar and designer suit, the same rules apply.” Noel Dempsey, the Transport Minister, said this week that those suspected of wrongdoing would be guilty of “economic treason” if they were found to be culpable. In announcing the raids yesterday, Brian Cowen, the Taoiseach, promised in the Dáil that the Government would not intervene in the ODCE’s inquiry. He said: “I have consistently made clear that . . . the Government would do nothing to prejudice subsequent criminal or civil proceedings.” ODCE officials arrived at Anglo Irish’s headquarters at about 9.30am yesterday with a search warrant that had been issued by a court on Monday. A spokesman said that the warrant authorised the regulator to “acquire books, documents and any other materials which may provide evidence”. Last night Brian Lenihan, the Finance Minister, said that investigations would be “completed in a matter of weeks”. The Dublin stock index fell below 2,000 points for the first time since May 1995. In mid-morning trade it was down 3 per cent at 1,989, less than a fifth of its value two years ago. It closed at 2,034, down 15 points.

Scott Eyre has had his assets frozen by federal regulators as the government investigates the Stanford Financial Group and an alleged $8 billion fraud

Scott Eyre has had more on his mind this spring than just baseball.
Eyre, like many Americans, has found himself a victim of a massive financial fraud scheme.

"Right now, I'm trying to figure out how to pay my bills. I'm broke right now. I have no money. I have $13 in my wallet."
-- Scott Eyre

"Right now, I'm trying to figure out how to pay my bills," the lefty reliever said Monday at Bright House Field. "I'm broke right now. I have no money. I have $13 in my wallet." Eyre, like Yankees outfielders Johnny Damon and Xavier Nady and Rays first baseman Carlos Pena, has had his assets frozen by federal regulators as the government investigates the Stanford Financial Group and an alleged $8 billion fraud scheme that involves billionaire Robert Allen Stanford. The Securities and Exchange Commission froze the assets of three Stanford entities. Damon and Nady have said they are having trouble paying bills because their liquid assets have been frozen, and Nady has said he is having problems securing housing in New York."I can't pay my bills right now," Eyre said. "My wife just wrote all these checks to pay bills, and they're all going to bounce. If it takes a week or two to get my money back, I'm going to have to ask my teammates for some money. Seriously, I'm going to have to ask them that. I can't get any money out." Eyre has another account not affiliated with Stanford, but he said that account doesn't have enough to handle living expenses -- including mortgage, bills, etc. -- on a long-term basis. "We'll get our money back eventually," Eyre said. "They caught ours so early that they think we'll only lose the interest. Supposedly, the money is insured. But it's all a scheme, so who knows if that's real insurance or not? "If I do lose all the money, I will need to play for another year." Eyre's future in baseball is what led to him to discuss his financial troubles. Eyre thought 2008 might be his last season in baseball after Cubs manager Lou Piniella buried him in the bullpen. But the Cubs eventually traded Eyre to the Phillies in August, and he found new life. He went 3-0 with a 1.88 ERA in 19 appearances as he helped Philadelphia win the World Series. Eyre felt so good last year, he enjoyed the Phillies and the city so much, that he decided to play one more season. The club obliged when it signed him to a one-year, $2 million contract. "I'm treating this like it is my last year," Eyre said. "I'm working harder. I'm making sure that I do the things I need to do. In all honesty, I didn't work as hard as I could the last couple years, and I feel [badly] about that. You do what you do in the offseason, and in the season, you kind of get lax. And I'm not going to do that this year. It's not going to happen." Eyre said he apologized to Cubs general manager Jim Hendry when he traded him to the Phillies. "Why?" Hendry said. "I don't feel like I fulfilled the promise that I made you that I would work hard," Eyre replied. So Eyre will work hard to go out on top, if this is it. "My wife is ready for me to be home, and my kids are ready for me to be home," Eyre said. "And I'm OK with that. But that being said, when this season ends and if my arm feels really good -- and it feels really good right now -- we'll sit down as a family. I'll look at my kids and say, 'Do you want daddy to play again?' Like every player, it's a family thing. But it really is a family thing for me." This is Eyre's 13th season in the Majors. "I'm sorry, but a little kid from Salt Lake City, I never ever imagined I'd have this much time in the Majors," Eyre said. Eyre just hopes that if he does have a 14th year in the Majors, it is on his own terms.

Several buyers in a $75 million Cheatham County condominium project are suing to get their earnest money returned

Nine buyers in the Braxton Condominiums at Harpeth Shoals Marina, a luxury condominium near the banks of the Cumberland River in Ashland City, have filed suit claiming the development company breached their contracts by missing a key deadline and failing to deliver a promised commercial component.Several buyers in a $75 million Cheatham County condominium project are suing to get their earnest money returned, saying the developer failed to live up to promises made about the project.The suit, which asks that plaintiffs be refunded $399,500 in deposits, is one of two that has been filed by Braxton buyers. A similar claim was made last month in Cheatham County Chancery Court.The disputes are the latest sign of litigation in connection with the recent condo boom and a later slowdown in sales. Last week, several contract holders in a Midtown condominium, the Bristol West End, were told they could face court proceedings if they don't pay for not living up to their purchase agreements.Bristol wants tens of thousands of dollars from several people who backed out of purchase contracts. The developer wants to be compensated for money the firm says it lost when it had to resell units to new buyers at lower prices.The Braxton condo suits center on the pace of construction of two 10-story residential buildings and a neighboring marina.Both suits say The Braxton LLC, a private partnership formed to build the project, failed to meet an Aug. 4, 2008, construction deadline in purchase agreements. The plaintiffs, a group of nine Middle Tennessee residents living in Davidson, Williamson and DeKalb counties, also say Braxton did not follow through on a promise to build a commercial component that was supposed to include a restaurant, retail shops and marina services."There's no apparent evidence that they're ever going to start construction," said Phillip Jones, the group's attorney. "The project on the ground is clearly different."
The latest suit comes on the heels of legal action late last month by a buyer from Ashland City seeking the return of $174,286. The money represents the buyer's deposit for a unit on the Braxton's 10th floor and fees for a slip in the marina. Benjamin Perry, the Ashland City attorney who filed that suit, could not be reached for comment.Both suits come after the project's lead developer, Nashville resident John T. Rankin, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in November. That case centered on Rankin's personal debts from another Cheatham County development, but the proceedings nonetheless prevented the Braxton's buyers from pursuing their claims, Jones said.Since then, management of Braxton LLC has passed to Charles A. Elcan, a Nashville executive who has worked in the health-care and real estate industry, property records filed in Cheatham County show. Elcan did not return a message left at his home Monday evening.Complicating the suit were several liens filed against the Braxton property in the fall. Property records show that builder T.W. Frierson and other contractors were owed more than $3.9 million last fall for work performed on the condos. Most of those liens have been settled.Meanwhile, contracts on four units in the Braxton have closed, property records show. Two units were transferred to Community Bank & Trust, a project lender that held a $995,000 promissory note signed by Rankin and his wife.An Ashland City attorney and a real estate agent selling units in the building closed on the other two units.

Former University of Nebraska Regent David Hergert has been charged with 18 counts of bank fraud

Former University of Nebraska Regent David Hergert has been charged with 18 counts of bank fraud, marking the latest episode in a string of legal and financial woes following his 2006 impeachment for breaking campaign-finance laws

Shashi Bacheta who amassed almost £50,000 in state benefits claiming she was depressed and bedridden with a bad back was regularly scuba diving

Shashi Bacheta who amassed almost £50,000 in state benefits claiming she was depressed and bedridden with a bad back was in fact regularly scuba diving off Africa from her boyfriend’s £100,000 yacht.Shashi Bacheta told the authorities she was jobless, felt “like a social outcast” and needed “24-hour care” because she lived alone, was unable to get out of bed and suffered depression.But yesterday the 52-year-old was warned she faces jail after it emerged she was actually managing a post office, living with her partner and sailing thousands of miles around the world to Kenya, South Africa and Tenerife on his yacht Kismet.The mother of one, from Fforestfach, Swansea, was caught when investigators tracked down the yacht on a blog and found a picture of her lounging on a deck with lover Jeffrey Cole.She falsely claimed disability living allowance, income support and incapacity benefit for six years between 2002 and 2008. She received £49,700 in total, according to the Department of Work and Pensions, which, with Swansea Council, began investigating her claims two years ago.
Fraud investigators found that – far from being unemployed – Bacheta worked as a manager at the Rheidol Avenue Post Office in Clase, near Swansea’s DVLA.They also found that she was not living on her own in various flats, for which she was claiming housing benefit, across the city. She was in fact living with her 58-year-old partner at his spacious home at Gower Road in Swansea’s upmarket Sketty district.Cole, who formerly worked in the shop-fitting business and who owned three properties in Swansea, was the Postmaster at the Rheidol Avenue Post Office with Bacheta acting as his manager.Suspicions were aroused about the lifestyle of Bacheta, who was seen going to the Swansea Yacht and Sub Aqua Club with Cole. Nobody there realised she was claiming benefits and that Cole was helping her.Jeff Fish, a Swansea Council fraud investigator, decided to trawl the internet for references to Cole’s bought-from-new £100,000 – Beneteau-make yacht Kismet. He encountered a blog being written by a retired South Wales policewoman and her husband while aboard their yacht.The couple, on a round- the-world trip, had no idea Cole and Bacheta were benefit fraudsters. They met them off Gran Canaria and mentioned Kismet’s name on the blog.Mr Fish said: “We also downloaded a picture of them at the couple’s yacht on Gran Canaria with Shashi Bacheta looking quite well.“We later carried out a search of their home and found PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructor) records relating to Bacheta scuba diving off Mombasa, Kenya.“We also found they had been in their yacht off the coast of South Africa.”Bacheta and Cole were due to begin an expensive 15-day trial at Swansea Crown Court yesterday. But they changed their pleas at the last minute to guilty to a variety of benefit fraud charges.Cole admitted four charges including false accounting over council tax benefit and housing benefit plus dishonestly obtaining bank credits, all in relation to Bacheta’s false claims.Bacheta pleaded guilty to 16 charges including fraud, false accounting, obtaining benefits by deception and obtaining money transfers by deception.Afterwards, the DWP said Bacheta’s daughter, 28-year-old Anju Bacheta, had already pleaded guilty to fraud relating to her telling the authorities she worked 35 hours per week as her mother’s carer, when she did not.The judge adjourned sentence yesterday for three weeks to allow reports into the defendants’ backgrounds to be drawn up and he granted them bail on condition their surrendered their passports.But Judge Huw Davies warned Cole and Shashi Bacheta (Anju Bacheta was not present in court) that “indicative guidelines” suggested a custodial sentence.
Francis Jones, for Cole, told the court his client may apply for leave to travel to Spain to oversee the sale of his yacht for which a buyer had been found.Melanie Surridge, officer in charge of the joint Swansea Council and DWP investigation, said: “It’s quite staggering that this lady claimed to be bedridden yet was regularly on her partner’s yacht and able to partake in active sports like scuba diving.

Ian Thow, 48, was arrested by the U.S. Marshals Oregon Fugitive Task Force

Ian Thow, 48, was arrested by the U.S. Marshals Oregon Fugitive Task Force this week as he exited a condominium to go jogging. His initial court appearance Wednesday featured 90 minutes of legal sparring between his court-appointed attorney and an assistant U.S. attorney.At the end, a federal judge ordered a second hearing at 1:30 p.m. Friday.The judge will decide whether to transfer Thow to U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington for an extradition hearing or to have him stay in Portland for that hearing and surrender to Canadian authorities.Thow, through attorney Patrick Ehlers, offered to have his children drive him to the border to surrender to Canadian authorities, The Oregonian newspaper reported.The judge declined that option.The fugitive was wanted by Interpol and Canadian law enforcement on accusations of financial fraud that totaled more than $6 million and could be as much as $32 million.The U.S. citizen is the former vice president with the Berkshire investment firm in Victoria, B.C. From December 2003 to September 2005, he allegedly got people to invest in securities that did not exist and then put the money in his personal account, fueling a lavish lifestyle.He disappeared last summer, shortly after the fraud charges were filed.Washington state officials prepared a provisional arrest warrant Jan. 6 at the request of Canadian authorities, who thought Thow was living in Seattle.Oregon authorities were contacted when Seattle marshals learned Thow was in Portland.

Details from Stanford company websites about his financial empire

Quote from Allen Stanford in magazine

"Our world is far different than the world my grandfather lived in when the first Stanford company was founded ... As a company founded in the midst of the Great Depression -- an environment of despair and negativity -- we have a long-proven understanding of how even the most severe downcycles can bring opportunities that yield significant benefits in the long run."

Following are details from Stanford company websites about his financial empire, including from a 2008 copy of the group's Stanford Eagle Magazine. In the final section, the information comes from the civil complaint filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Allen Stanford:Is a fifth-generation Texan and chairman of the Stanford Financial Group of companies that claims clients from 140 countries and assets under management and advisement of $50 billion.His grandfather, Lodis, founded the first Stanford Company during the Great Depression in 1932 in the small central-Texas town of Mexia.Allen Stanford, 58, made his first fortune in real estate in the early 1980s and expanded the family firm into a global wealth management company.He lives in St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands, and holds dual U.S. and Antigua and Barbuda citizenship. He was the first American to be knighted by Antigua and Barbuda in 2006 to become Sir Allen Stanford.
Major Stanford companies and divisions include:
Stanford Financial Group Global Management and Stanford Global Advisory LLC, based in St.Croix.
Stanford International Bank, headquartered in St. John's, Antigua.
Stanford Group Company, based in Houston, Texas, is the companies' North American head office.
Stanford Policy Research Group, a Washington-based research team and a Government Affairs Office.
Among the financial services Stanford offers:
Wealth management, including planning, asset management, brokerage, trust services, insurance and coins and bullion.
Institutional services, including research, investment banking, and institutional sales and trading.
Support for sports includes:
Stanford's own private Twenty20 cricket competition in the Caribbean, including a $20 million game in November between England and his own team made up of West Indian players.
Endorsement relationships with Fijian golfer Vijay Singh and England soccer player Michael Owen.
Host sponsor of the 2009 Sony Ericsson Open tennis event in Biscayne, Florida on March 23-April 5.
Sponsors venues at the Houston Polo Club and International Polo Club in Palm Beach, and sponsors the Stanford Charity Polo Day at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in the UK.
In golf, it sponsors the PGA Tour's Stanford St. Jude Championship in Memphis, Tennessee.
Sponsors the Stanford Antigua Sailing Week

SEC Complaint says:

* Since 1994, Stanford International Bank claims it has never failed to hit investment returns in excess of 10 percent a year.

* In 2008, the bank said its "diversified portfolio of investments" lost only 1.3 percent, while the S&P 500 U.S. stocks benchmark declined 39 percent.

* SEC says the bank's historical returns are "improbable, if not impossible."

* The bank quoted certificate of deposit rates of more than 7 percent during 2005 and 2006, and quoted a 3-year CD at 5.375 percent annual rate in November 2008, against comparable U.S. bank CDs of 3.2 percent.

* Did not disclose that its investment portfolio includes a significant portion in illiquid private equity and real estate investments

.

Antigua is reeling from the news that Sir Allen Stanford has been charged over a massive fraud.

Antigua is reeling from the news that its single biggest private investor has been charged over a massive fraud. With off-shore and on-shore banking interests, the Texan billionaire Sir Allen Stanford was a prominent financial figure not just in Antigua but around the world. But his influence - as an employer, a sponsor, and a banker - could change dramatically as he faces charges by the US Securities and Exchange Commission over an alleged $8bn (£5.6bn) investment fraud. While the SEC described it as "fraud of shocking magnitude that has spread its tentacles throughout the world", some residents of Antigua's capital St John's were coping with the fallout a lot closer to home. People queued outside the Bank of Antigua branches - some to check their deposits were safe, while others were taking no chances and wanted to withdraw all their money. The Bank of Antigua is owned by the Stanford Financial Group, but is not part of the Antigua-based Stanford International Bank, nor the Stanford Group or investment advisor Stanford Capital Management - all of which have had their assets frozen.

U.S. marshals assisting the SEC have been unable to serve Stanford with court orders freezing assets

U.S. marshals assisting the SEC have been unable to serve Stanford with court orders freezing assets and appointing a receiver to run his Stanford Financial Group companies since a raid on his Houston headquarters Tuesday, Garber said.Garber said she was unaware of any warrants for Stanford's arrest and said the SEC was still hoping for his voluntary cooperation on the civil fraud charges."Certainly he is still subject to the court orders. To that extent, we certainly want to ensure that he is served," Garber said. She said two executive who were charged with Stanford, Laura Pendergest-Holt and Jim Davis, had been served.The FBI is in communication with the SEC regarding the Stanford case, FBI spokeswoman Shauna Dunlap said. She gave no more details. "The FBI is certainly aware of the SEC investigation, and we have been in contact with the SEC," Dunlap said.The SEC said in court papers disclosed Tuesday that Stanford had failed to appear in recent weeks for testimony ordered by subpoena.

Evelyn Rivera had pleaded guilty to participating in a scheme to net $18.5 million from fraudulent mortgages

Federal prosecutors say Evelyn Rivera, a licensed title agent and owner of Asset Title LLC, received her sentence on Friday. Rivera had previously pleaded guilty to participating in a scheme to net $18.5 million from fraudulent mortgages on 55 Fort Lauderdale condominium units. Authorities discovered the fraud after about $690,000 in fraudulent mortgage loans had been issued on two units.Mike Acosta, a licensed property appraiser, and William Louisma, a recruiter of straw buyers, were also convicted for their roles in the scheme. Acosta was sentenced to 41 months in prison, and Louisma was sentenced to 46 months.

David Kostelec, Leawood real estate agent who operated under straw entities called Alexandra Enterprises and Hyde Park Development

Leawood real estate agent who operated under straw entities called Alexandra Enterprises and Hyde Park Development will go to federal prison for almost 13 years for his role in a $12 million home loan fraud scheme.David Kostelec, 53, pleaded guilty in October to federal prosecutors of obtaining home loans using phony loan documents and bogus appraisals and then laundering the proceeds in various bank accounts between 2002 and 2005.Kostelec also was ordered at his Monday sentencing to pay $1.3 million in restitution.The scheme involved looking up personal information of licensed appraisers and forging their signatures on loan documents to extract the loans.

family of B. Ramalinga Raju,Indian banks and foreign banks operating in the country have either lent or provided guarantees

Indian banks and foreign banks operating in the country have either lent or provided guarantees of around Rs8,000 crore to various companies promoted by the family of B. Ramalinga Raju, the jailed former chairman of Satyam Computer Services Ltd. The RBI official did not want to be named as he is not the official spokesperson for the central bank.Capital concern: A file photo of Satyam founder B. Ramalinga Raju. A group of lenders is gunning for a seat on the board of Maytas Infra Ltd, which is headed by Teja Raju, the eldest son of Ramalinga Raju. Madhu Kapparath / MintMaytas Infra is headed by Teja Raju, eldest son of Ramalinga Raju, who admitted to fiddling with the accounts of the technology services firm he founded. The infrastructure firm has been engulfed by the Satyam mess and lost several contracts since early January.State Bank of India (SBI), ICICI Bank Ltd, Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. Ltd (HSBC), Citibank NA and HDFC Bank Ltd are the leading bankers to a clutch of firms promoted by the Raju family.“Banks’ total outstanding to Maytas Infra is to the tune of Rs3,500 crore, of which Rs1,500 crore is fund-based. Additionally, banks also have exposure to Maytas Properties and to select small-time investment companies floated by the Raju family,” added RBI official. “These exposures are mainly in the form of guarantees.”The central bank, however, is unlikely to tell the banks it regulates what should be done about these exposures. “We are not giving any advice to the banks on business decisions. Based on their risk appetite, they are free to decide if they want to continue to lend to these entities,” the central banker added.Fund-based exposures are when banks lend cash to companies. Non-fund exposures are credit facilities given by the banks where actual lending is not involved. Guarantees are one form of non-fund banking services, where the bank picks up the tab in case a company defaults on its obligations.
“ICICI Bank has the largest exposure to the Raju family promoted firms. This includes both fund-based and non fund-based, including guarantees,” said the RBI official. “State Bank of India has an exposure of about Rs500 crore.”
SBI chairman O.P. Bhatt had earlier confirmed in a public statement that his bank has an exposure of around Rs500 crore to Maytas Infra and Maytas Properties. The latter is an unlisted real estate developer.Charudatta Deshpande, spokesperson of ICICI Bank, in an email response said, “We are one of several bankers to Maytas Infrastructure and are reviewing our exposure. We cannot comment on individual lending exposures. We will issue any disclosures if and when we assess that there is an impact that requires such disclosure. We are monitoring our exposure and exploring possible courses of action with other lenders; cannot comment further at this stage.”

European Union finance ministers on Tuesday called for the renegotiation of a deal with Liechtenstein on measures to tackle tax fraud

European Union finance ministers on Tuesday called for the renegotiation of a deal with Liechtenstein on measures to tackle tax fraud, seeking guarantees of better access to banks' information.A statement by the council of ministers, meeting in Brussels, said it "strongly invites the (EU) commission to continue negotiations with Liechtenstein," calling for a report from the EU's executive by May.The ministers are seeking "to obtain such change in the text" as to ensure "effective administrative assistance and access to information with regard to all forms of investments, in particular foundations and trusts."Liechtenstein's prime minister resigned after his party suffered shock losses in a general election on Sunday, just months after a tax evasion scandal sparked international criticism of the principality's secretive banking rules.Liechtenstein, wedged between Austria and Switzerland, came under pressure from Germany and other countries last year following investigations into suspected mass tax evasion through accounts in the country.German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called for greater transparency in the principality, where investors can use foundations to buy or hold assets anonymously.
The principality has reached an agreement with the United States on fighting tax evasion and now EU nations want a similar deal.EU member states "expect Liechtenstein to encompass in the agreement with the European Community and its member states at least a similar scope" of agreement as that "recently agreed with third countries," the finance ministers said in their statement

Hedge-fund manager Grant “Gad” Grieve and two New York investment advisory firms he controlled were sued by U.S. regulators

Hedge-fund manager Grant “Gad” Grieve and two New York investment advisory firms he controlled were sued by U.S. regulators over claims he listed a fictitious auditor while fabricating financial statements. Grieve, who managed Finvest Asset Management LLC and Finvest Fund Management LLC, created two “sham” firms that purportedly vouched for accounting and profits, the Securities and Exchange Commission said today in a complaint at federal court in Manhattan. He raised more than $11 million from U.S. clients since 2004, and began soliciting Europeans last year with “newly fabricated, fraudulent documents,” the SEC said. “He represented to potential investors that he had 54 consecutive months of positive returns, which we found to be highly suspicious” and determined to be false, Scott Friestad, an SEC attorney overseeing its lawsuit, said in an interview. Money managers who report consistent profits amid rising and falling markets are under scrutiny by investors and regulators after Bernard Madoff’s alleged $50 billion fraud. Since Madoff’s arrest Dec. 11, the SEC has announced unrelated lawsuits against at least six people for allegedly inflating profits or siphoning off client money. Grieve, 47, doesn’t yet have an attorney in the lawsuit, according to the SEC. There was no immediate response to e-mails sent to him and his firm, or to a phone number listed for him and Finvest Asset Management. Grieve is a citizen of South Africa and has lived in the U.S. and Israel, according to the SEC. He began managing an investment portfolio for a family office in the mid-1990s. In 2001, he founded Finvest Asset Management, which operates the Primer Fund. Six years later, he started a second investment vehicle, Yankee Fund, through Finvest Fund Management. He gave investors a bogus audit report printed on letterhead for an accounting firm called Kass Roland in Jersey City, New Jersey, according to the SEC. Phone numbers for the firm and its Internet domain name were listed to accounts in his name. No such company has registered with the state or with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the U.S. watchdog for auditors of publicly traded companies, the SEC said. Grieve reportedly disputed an Aug. 8 article in the hedge- fund publication FINalternatives that said Finvest Asset Management may be “going under.” The firm had been unable to reconcile payments to investors in its managed accounts, and employees were working from home or looking for jobs, the article said, citing unidentified people.
“I have absolutely no idea from where this originates,” the publication quoted Grieve as saying at the time, noting the firm had recently suffered a power failure that had sent workers home early. “Clearly and categorically I must state that these suggestions are malicious and untrue.” In press releases since then, Grieve said he had left U.S. markets to expand his business in Europe with Finvest offices in cities including Zurich and London, the SEC wrote in its complaint. He said he secured a $300 million “mandate” from a wealthy European investor and was “allocated” about $2.5 billion for private equity investment from the office of an unidentified European family, the regulator said. Last month, he showed a U.S. brokerage statement for the Primer Fund to an institutional investor in Europe, according to the SEC. While the statement listed $118 million in a U.S. trading account for the fund on Dec. 31, the account actually had a negative balance of $65, the agency said.

Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, known for taking on tobacco, asbestos and insurance companies, pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday

Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, known for taking on tobacco, asbestos and insurance companies, pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday as part of a deal with prosecutors investigating a scheme to bribe a state court judge.Scruggs last year admitted conspiring to bribe another Mississippi judge in a dispute over $26.5 million in legal fees from Hurricane Katrina insurance cases. He is serving a 5-year sentence.Scruggs gained national prominence and earned hundreds of millions of dollars with a case that led to a multibillion-dollar settlement from tobacco companies. His efforts were portrayed in the 1999 film "The Insider" starring Al Pacino and Russell Crowe.

Gordon Grigg is accused of bilking clients out of at least $6 million.

Federal regulators said Gordon Grigg is accused of bilking clients out of at least $6 million. Investigators said Grigg, who runs ProTrust Management Inc., used the federal bailout program to bring in investors.He has been charged with securities fraud and the court ordered a freeze on Grigg's personal and company assets.

Venture capitalist William "Boots" Del Biaggio III, 41, of San Jose entered his plea before U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer at a hearing

former co-owner of the San Jose Sharks hockey team pleaded guilty Wednesday to securities fraud for bilking investors of millions of dollars in a series of schemes to help buy a stake in the NHL's Nashville Predators and to pay off gambling debts.
Venture capitalist William "Boots" Del Biaggio III, 41, of San Jose entered his plea before U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer at a hearing in San Francisco.Federal prosecutors said Del Biaggio defrauded numerous people to obtain and guarantee loans of about $100 million in connection with various ventures, including the purchase of a $25 million stake in the Predators. Del Biaggio improperly obtained and falsified brokerage account statements to give the appearance that he owned securities that he, in fact, did not own, authorities said. He then transmitted those falsified statements to lenders and pledged the securities as collateral, prosecutors said.
In addition to having once owned part of the Sharks, Del Biaggio co-founded San Jose's Heritage Bank of Commerce. Del Biaggio defrauded investors and lenders, using the proceeds to "finance a luxurious lifestyle" and as a "personal checkbook to pay home mortgage and decorating expenses, gambling debts, credit card bills and other personal and unrelated business expenses," the complaint said. Without admitting guilt, Del Biaggio has agreed to a settlement in a separate civil suit filed in December by the Securities and Exchange Commission. A judge is to determine "the amount of ill-gotten gains" and penalties at a later date, the SEC said.

Donald Green, 49, was sentenced late Wednesday in U.S. District Court to three years in prison and five years of supervised release

Donald Green, 49, was sentenced late Wednesday in U.S. District Court to three years in prison and five years of supervised release. He also was ordered to pay $1.3 million in restitution to the investment firm Stillwater Capital Partners and 23 banks. Green also owes the Internal Revenue Service $230,376 for unreported income and capital gains on real estate transactions, the U.S. Attorney’s said.Green pleaded guilty in April to one count each of tax evasion, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud, and bank fraud for his role in a mortgage scheme hatched in 2003. He admitted to buying dilapidated houses in distressed Columbus neighborhoods and conspiring to secure inflated appraisals before selling them to “straw buyers” who used falsified information to attain mortgages.The broker accused of helping Green sell the properties, Jonathan Boyd, was convicted in November on wire fraud, conspiracy and tax evasion charges. He awaits sentencing.Sentenced this week in connection with the schemes:
George Jordan, 51. Jordan, of Canal Winchester, is set to serve a year and a day in prison, three years of supervised release and 416 hours of community service. He’s required to pay $1.18 million to Netherlands-based ABN Amro. Jordan pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy and money laundering last April.The attorney’s office said Jordan, like Green, sold houses at inflated prices, working with co-conspirator Shawn Griffin, 39, to find straw buyers. Griffin, who pleaded guilty in May to conspiracy and money laundering charges, has not been sentenced yet.
Aryeh Schottenstein, 35. The Oak Park, Mich., resident was sentenced to 42 months in prison, 416 hours of community service and three years supervised release after pleading guilty to one count each of conspiracy and money laundering. He’s required to pay $3.74 million to financial institutions victimized by the scheme.
Green, Jordan and Schottenstein are jointly liable for money owed to the victimized banks and Stillwater, the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s office said.
Jeffrey Lieberman, 58, is set to serve 16 months in prison and three years of supervised release after pleading guilty last year to a count each of conspiracy and money laundering. The Bexley resident, who prosecutors say worked with Schottenstein to solicit funds from private investors, has been ordered to pay Stillwater $400,000 in restitution.

Christian Arthur Richards who ran a business arranging swinger parties in Thailand has been arrested by police

British man who ran a business arranging swinger parties in Thailand has been arrested by police.The 54 year old man, Christian Arthur Richards, was arrested at the scene of one such party on Thursday. Police also held six Thais and 16 foreigners found with Richards in a Bangkok hotel.Richards ran a website to arrange and advertise the parties which cost 3,000 baht (circa £60) per person. It is thought that he arranged at least 100 parties in Bangkok and notorious party/sleaze resort Pattaya.Richard's punishment is interesting part of the story, the police are suggesting he will face either "a 10 year jail term or a fine of up to 20,000 baht".
Ten years sounds incredibly harsh, for a victimless crime and with no prostitutes were involved. Wouldn't it be ironic if a professional sex party organiser had to spent 10 years eating porridge and taking showers in a Thai slammer?Back to reality, this is Thailand and a fine will most likely be sufficient and, as is often the case, the fine is hardly a deterrent.Given that his parties typically attracted 20-25 'guests', the fine is less than a typical event's earnings (20,000 equates to less than 7 paying customers). As a veteran of more than 100 parties, 20,000 should be well within his reaches rendering the fine is a truly pitiful slap on the wrists.
Welcome to Thai justice where money is king and (some) crimes far darker and more sinister than this can be settled with no great punishment or deterrent for future offenders.

Dennis Hunter,captured now faces extradition back to the UK, where he is due to face charges.

Dennis Hunter, 58, hunted in connection with a major VAT fraud, which is thought to have cost the Treasury around £250m.The suspect, who featured in a top ten list of British police's most wanted fugitives, now faces extradition back to the UK, where he is due to face charges.He is accused of being behind a massive 'carousel fraud' operation, which is said to have taken place between May 2001 and August 2003.
The crime - also known as Missing Trader Fraud - is costing European Union states billions of pounds a year.It occurs because cross-border transactions within the EU are zero-rated for VAT, allowing crime syndicates to exploit this and pocket millions.They buy goods from one member state, then add on VAT, and sell it on in another European country.The seller then disappears without handing over the VAT to the taxman.A House of Lords EU committee report recently warned that the crime had "risen considerably" in recent years because of the proliferation of high-value, low-weight goods like mobile phones.The UK Government estimates it was swindled out of £4.75bn in 2006 alone.It is not known where in Hungary Budapest-born Hunter was detained.Police had earlier thought he was hiding in the Costa Blanca area around Alicante.Crimestoppers and the Serious Organised Crime Agency issued a description of Hunter last year along with nine other fugitives they thought were in Spain.

John A. Yanchek pleaded guilty to conspiracy, money laundering and making false statements to a bank in connection with a $82.7 mil commercial loan.

Authorities say a Sarasota, Fla., lawyer has admitted to participating in an $82.7 million mortgage loan scheme that defrauded seven banks.Federal prosecutors say 49-year-old John A. Yanchek pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiracy, money laundering and making false statements to a bank in connection with a commercial loan. The most serious offense, making false statements, carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine.plea agreement says Yanchek and three other men conspired to get commercial loans to cover the purchase of vacant land in Sarasota and Manatee counties. The plan was to obtain loans in amounts that would let the conspirators purchase the property without down payments and then keep the extra money for themselves.

National Bank of Kuwait has fully reimbursed all its clients who lost money in the alleged $50bn Ponzi scheme run by New York broker Bernard Madoff

National Bank of Kuwait has fully reimbursed all its clients who lost money in the alleged $50bn Ponzi scheme run by New York broker Bernard Madoff, banking sources said.NBK paid about $50m to some 20 individuals who invested in Madoff feeder funds through its Swiss bank in December, one NBK executive said.The clients received the principal they initially put into the funds and the gains, said by authorities to be fictitious, they thought they had made. A bank spokesman declined to comment.
People close to NBK saw the measure as a way of strengthening its relationships with clients.The move puts pressure on other banks and fund managers whose clients lost money in the alleged fraud."Other banks should similarly acknowledge responsibility for investing their clients' monies in Madoff's fraudulent enterprise, and with the threat of reputational losses and litigation, we would not be surprised to see other banks doing right by their clients," said Mark Gross, of the US-based Pomerantz law firm, which represents European and US clients who lost money to Mr Madoff's operation.NBK had the advantage of having relatively small losses to cover compared with the $7.5bn and $3.2bn lost by the clients of US money managers Fairfield Greenwich and Tremont Group respectively.Santander, the Spanish bank that stands third on the list of reported Madoff losses with about $3.2bn, has offered to cover part of the losses of its private clients who sent money to Mr Madoff's operation through Santander's Optimal hedge fund arm.But Santander's offer covers only the principal invested and is in the form of preference shares, which some investors have argued are worth only 20 per cent of the face value of their original investment. Institutional investors are not included in the offer.People at several other banks with Madoff exposure took pains to distinguish themselves from NBK and Santander, where the investors who have been offered reimbursement were individuals with wealth management or private banking accounts.UBS and HSBC each served as custodians for Madoff feeder funds, and the UniCredit Madoff customers were institutional investors who invested through the Italian bank's Irish unit.

Feeder funds that acted as middlemen between investors and Madoff

Swiss banker Werner Wolfer, the memory of his first encounter with one of Bernard Madoff's emissaries nine years ago is as clear as the waters of Lake Geneva.
To hear Patrick Littaye talk, the Wall Street money manager could walk on those waters. "It was like a religion," Wolfer says of the promise of steady returns, which would be echoed by other acolytes. "These people firmly believed in the story."
Littaye was co-founder of New York-based Access International Advisors, one of more than a dozen feeder funds that acted as middlemen between investors and Madoff. Wolfer visited Littaye at his office near the Champs Elysees in Paris in 2000, after becoming chief investment officer at Banque Marcuard Cook in Geneva, to learn more about how Madoff made his money.Banque Marcuard, a private bank catering to the wealthy and now part of Swiss lender St. Galler Kantonalbank, had invested about $50 million of its clients' money directly with Madoff in the mid-1990s on Littaye's recommendation.

Banque Marcuard made money with Madoff along with its clients. They paid fees based on the profits Madoff reported, which averaged 11 a year. There was never a losing year, regardless of whether markets went up or down. The proof was in the trading statements sent to clients every month.

"It all looked so good," says Wolfer, who has a master's degree in economics from the University of St. Gallen.The truth turned out to be something else — and far more complex than a criminal masterminding a $50 billion Ponzi scheme that bilked investors from Palm Beach to Paris, as Madoff allegedly confessed to doing Dec. 11.If the 70-year-old money manager was running a con, then his marketers like Access International, wittingly or not, were part of the scam.The purported mission of such feeder funds was to vet hedge funds for wealthy clients. Instead, the line between victim and perpetrator was blurred. Middlemen like Littaye funneled billions of dollars to Madoff, even when they suspected he was engaged in questionable trading practices. In return, they reaped hundreds of millions of dollars in client fees.Wolfer says he heard of traders trying to replicate the split-strike conversion strategy Madoff told investors he used — buying shares of large U.S. companies and entering into options contracts to limit the risk — and getting far lower returns. He also says he heard Littaye and other middlemen talk about how Madoff may have used the knowledge he gained from his market-making firm, New York-based Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, to get in and out of stocks ahead of market swings.That's front-running, a term usually applied to brokers' trading for their own account — and profit — ahead of clients.It's also applicable to Madoff's purported practice, says Peter Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit and a former federal prosecutor."Front-running isn't who's getting the benefit; it's who's paying the price," says Henning, noting that Madoff's market-making customers expected the firm to obtain the best price available when buying or selling stocks. Instead, their interests were apparently subordinated to those of Madoff's investment clients.While front-running is illegal, it didn't horrify Madoff's champions."They were convinced that the risk was only that the Securities and Exchange Commission would do something about breaches of the Chinese wall in the Madoff organization," Wolfer says. In the worst case, he says, "What could be expected was that at a certain point the SEC could say stop."Wolfer, who says he doesn't speak for his former employer, now manages a fund of funds at Geneva-based Banque SCS Alliance, which invested in another Madoff feeder fund, Fairfield Sentry. He says he handled the risk that Madoff might be front-running by sharing this suspicion with clients who put money into the fund."With every year passing, the worries were a little bit less," Wolfer says.Other money managers made similar winks and nods about Madoff's advantage, according to people who were pitched the funds. One Swiss bank, Geneva-based Union Bancaire Privee, which had $700 million invested with Madoff, told clients in a Dec. 17, 2008, letter that "in essence, the perceived edge was Madoff's ability to gather and process market-order-flow information to time the implementation of the split-strike option strategy."A spokesman for Union Bancaire Privee says it didn't believe Madoff was engaged in any fraudulent activity. Littaye, who now runs Access by himself and has not been charged with any wrongdoing, says he lost his own savings. His fund had more than $2 billion invested in Madoff.

David Murcia Guzmán the Madoff of Colombia

David Murcia Guzmán is often disparaged as the Madoff of Colombia, after Bernard L. Madoff, the New York financier accused of creating a $50 billion investment fraud. But to some in the lower classes in one of Latin America’s most stratified of countries, he is a folk hero, and his government-shaking arrest recently was just another example of the extent to which the rich will go to keep the poor in their place.In some ways, the rise and fall of Mr. Murcia, a child of Bogotá’s slums who clawed his way into Colombia’s elite, may be even more exceptional than Mr. Madoff’s. Nowadays, Mr. Murcia ponders the events that delivered him to a cell at La Picota, a prison situated amid the shantytowns of this city’s southern fringe.

At 28, Mr. Murcia has been charged with creating a hydra-headed enterprise based in Panama that laundered money and enticed thousands of Colombians into a pyramid scheme known by his own initials, D.M.G.

The accusations are common enough in these times of bewildering international financial ruses. But only in Colombia, perhaps, with its history of charismatic outlaws who chafe at the conservative status quo, could Mr. Murcia emerge not as a Madoff-like villain but a folk hero with a legion of followers from coca-growing regions.Mr. Murcia revels in this transformation into an anti-establishment idol. “My only flaw was that I dared to dream,” he said in a meandering interview at La Picota under the gaze of three guards armed with machine guns. “What is criminal about dreaming?” Just a couple of months ago, Mr. Murcia was wining and dining provincial governors. He flew to different cities aboard a private jet. Visitors to his home in Panama marveled at his fleet of exotic cars, including a Ferrari, a Maserati and a Lamborghini. Then it all collapsed as the global financial and economic crisis pinched the markets. Several pyramid schemes in Colombia collapsed in November. The authorities here shut down D.M.G. while the Panamanian police rounded up Mr. Murcia. He was quickly extradited to Colombia, where a prison barber awaited at La Picota to cut off his trademark ponytail. But there was a twist to this Icarus-like story: many of the small investors in D.M.G. saw Mr. Murcia not as a swindler but as their savior and protested his capture in almost a dozen cities. They claim the government’s intervention in D.M.G., not the nature of its activities, caused the loss of their savings. A hunger strike by his most die-hard supporters, who want his release and the reopening of D.M.G., persisted well into January in the colonial heart of Bogotá. “David Murcia was only trying to redistribute the wealth a little in Colombia,” said Norberto Escobar, 47, an impoverished D.M.G. investor from Putumayo, the southern coca-growing department, or province, where Mr. Murcia’s investment schemes first gathered speed about four years ago. “He was simply too much of a threat to the system,” said Mr. Escobar, interviewed recently alongside others clamoring for Mr. Murcia’s release at a hunger strike here. For a visitor, they broke into a chant: “Crea en Dios y en David Murcia” (“Believe in God and in David Murcia”). The mixture of popular outrage and scandal that followed Mr. Murcia’s capture has shaken Colombia. Claims surfaced that D.M.G. tried to curry favor with President Álvaro Uribe’s allies in the Colombian Congress; others said officials moved against Mr. Murcia because his power was coming to rival that of the country’s established banking families. This opened a rare window of dissent in a war-weary society against a president whose success against leftist rebels had shielded him from earlier scandals. A plan by Mr. Uribe’s supporters to let him run for another term unraveled, as the D.M.G. collapse did what no other crisis had done before: make Mr. Uribe, Colombia’s most powerful president in recent memory, tremble. “Not since the time of Pablo Escobar, when he acted like a philanthropist and won popular acclaim, has Colombia seen such an enigmatic and controversial figure as David Murcia Guzmán,” the respected weekly news magazine Semana said.

Dr. Sushil Sheth faces as long as 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine

Federal authorities have charged a cardiologist from the southern Chicago suburbs with bilking Medicare and insurance companies out of more than $13 million for care they say he never provided.
According to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's office, 49-year-old Dr. Sushil Sheth faces as long as 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for one count of health care fraud. Fitzgerald's office alleged Friday that Sheth received $13.4 million between January 2002 and July 2007 in fraudulent reimbursement for high levels of cardiac care that the office says the doctor never performed.
The (Tinley Park) SouthtownStar contacted Seth Friday at his Burr Ridge home and he denied the allegations. Sheth is affiliated with several hospitals in the southern suburbs and allegedly used his hospital access to obtain patient information.

Securities and Exchange Commission charged a missing hedge fund manager with fraud

Securities and Exchange Commission charged a missing hedge fund manager with fraud on Wednesday, saying he misled investors and overstated the value of investments in six of his funds by at least $300 million.The six funds appear to have total assets of less than $1 million, the S.E.C. said in a civil lawsuit filed in Federal District Court in Tampa, Fla. It said the fund manager, Arthur Nadel of Sarasota, Fla., had recently transferred at least $1.25 million from two funds to a secret bank account he controlled.Mr. Nadel disappeared on Jan. 14 and authorities say he fled Florida. In a suicide note left at his home, Mr. Nadel admitted that he lost clients’ money and feared they would want to kill him, The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported.On Wednesday the S.E.C. obtained a court order freezing Mr. Nadel’s assets and those of other defendants in the case.“Mr. Nadel’s alleged actions deceived investors, and we are seeking to hold him accountable for that misconduct,” David Nelson, director of the S.E.C.’s Miami regional office, said in a statement.
Two investment companies controlled by Mr. Nadel, Scoop Capital and Scoop Management, consented in a settlement with the S.E.C. to injunctions, asset freezes and the appointment of a receiver. They neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing.
The S.E.C. also is seeking restitution plus interest from several so-called relief defendants: the investment advisers Valhalla Management and Viking Management, and the hedge funds Scoop Real Estate, Valhalla Investment Partners, Victory IRA Fund, Victory Fund, Viking IRA Fund and Viking Fund.Those defendants consented to an asset freeze, also without admitting or denying the allegations.

The S.E.C. said Mr. Nadel claimed in offering materials that three of the funds had about $342 million in assets as of Nov. 30. The offering materials for several of the funds also claimed monthly returns of 11 to 12 percent last year, when they actually had negative results, the agency said.

In his suicide note, Mr. Nadel described the “extreme guilt he was feeling over business actions that he had taken which resulted in the loss of other people’s money,” a Sarasota County sheriff’s deputy wrote in a report, according to The Herald-Tribune.Mr. Nadel’s note stated “there are those that would like to kill him, but that he will do it himself.”Federal law enforcement authorities have tracked Mr. Nadel to Slidell, La., the newspaper said. No criminal charges have yet been filed against him and there is no warrant for his arrest.

charges were filed against four people accused of being involved in a million-dollar mortgage fraud scheme

Attorney General Mike Cox said Wednesday that charges were filed against four people accused of being involved in a million-dollar mortgage fraud scheme.

Dequincy Hyatt of Detroit, Seaesther Thompson-Hayes of Flat Rock and Aaron Brooks Jr. of Southgate were charged with one count each of racketeering, a 20-year felony, and two counts each of false pretenses, a 10-year felony.Pietro Biundo is accused of filing a falsified deed, a 5-year felony, when selling his Washington Township home in one of the transactions, according to Cox's office.

The complaint regarding the Washington Township house was brought to authorities' attention by Sterling Heights-based real estate mogul Ralph Roberts.A Michigan State Police and Attorney General's Office investigation determined that in 2006, Hyatt, managing partner of J.B. Homes/Construction LLC.; Hayes, a mortgage broker, and Brooks, an ex-service representative for the People's Trust Credit Union, completed mortgage fraud by using a straw buyer on two luxury houses -- the one in Washington Township and a second in Shelby Township -- that went into foreclosure, Cox's office said.

Grand Island insurance agency with more than $100 million in debts is being investigated for possible fraud

Grand Island insurance agency with more than $100 million in debts is being investigated for possible fraud and for selling investments in the company despite promising not to do so, state officials said Wednesday.First Americans Insurance Service Inc., which served Native American tribal governments, entered a voluntary moratorium in August 2007 against selling its debt, according to the State Banking Department.But in an order stopping any more such sales, the department said evidence indicates that company agents sold promissory notes to a Kansas resident and at least three Nebraskans between October 2007 and November 2008.Selling such notes without proper authorization would violate the Securities Act of Nebraska and would be a felony, said Sheila Cahill, legal counsel for the Banking Department's Bureau of Securities.State banking officials also were looking into what investors were told about the company and how the promissory notes were described, Cahill said.Stella Levea, First Americans president and treasurer, did not return several phone calls seeking comment.The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this month. One investor told The World-Herald he was asked to put money into the company only weeks before its Jan. 12 bankruptcy filing.Arthur Kline, 90, of Grand Island, said he invested $50,000 in addition to more than $100,000 he had invested years earlier.
"It feels like I got the shaft," Kline said.Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning said the State Patrol would help conduct the criminal investigation."A loss of this magnitude without a real explanation of how that loss occurred certainly raises questions about whether fraud occurred," Bruning said.Along with Levea, executives of the company include James Masat and Kenneth Mottin.In its bankruptcy filing, First Americans listed hundreds of creditors, many of them Nebraskans. Major creditors are owed as much as $5.7 million and $3.8 million, according to the bankruptcy filing.The company works with tribal governments, businesses and casinos in more than 20 states, writing commercial property and casualty and workers' compensation policies through several insurance firms, said Omaha attorney Robert Craig, who is handling the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing for First Americans.
The insurance policies sold to tribes through the agency appear to remain in force, Craig said.The company, which employs about 20 people, said it had between $100 million and $500 million in liabilities and up to $10 million in assets."It's a very big gap. There's nothing I could say that would eliminate that," Craig said, adding that the liabilities were closer to $100 million than $500 million.Some people, Craig said, have referred to the company's selling of debt as a "Ponzi scheme," which is a type of fraud that provides returns to investors out of money paid by new investors. Eventually such schemes collapse.First Americans sold promissory notes to investors and promised high returns, Craig said. That structure got "out of control," but calling it a Ponzi scheme is inaccurate, he said."It's a very well-run and productive insurance agency," Craig said. "It's this investment vehicle used that ended up getting out of control."

Charged yesterday Zohrab Marashlian, 64 and John Athanasiou, 63

Charged yesterday in indictments filed in federal court in Brooklyn were Zohrab Marashlian, 64, the former president of the civil division of Perini, which is headquartered in Massachusetts, and John Athanasiou, 63, the former director of purchasing for the firm's civil division, according to court documents.Attorneys for the two could not immediately be reached. Assistant U.S. Attorney Burton Ryan declined to comment.Company spokesman Tom Davies referred a reporter to a recent company filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission in which the company said it was in process of attempting to negotiate a civil settlement with the U.S. Attorney's office in connection with the investigation. Perini, which could lose government contracts if convicted of crimes in connection with the scheme, was not charged yesterday. In the SEC filing, the company said the investigation "concerns contracting between the company's civil division and disadvantaged, minority, and women-owned businesses in the New York City area construction industry."
Marashlian is scheduled to be arraigned on the charges later this month. Athanasiou is in Greece visiting his sick mother and will be arraigned later, officials said.
Among the projects that authorities say were not performed by minority-owned businesses as claimed: Parts of a West Side Highway project in Manhattan; the connector project involving the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and the Williamsburg Bridge and the Queens Boulevard/Honeywell Street Bridge project in Long Island City, according to the indictment.Several executives of minority-owned firms that participated in the scheme in return for kickbacks have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.

Bank of America, , charged that Steel Partners "pulled off a classic 'bait and switch"

Bank of America, acting as master trustee for ACF Industries' employee benefits plan, charged that Steel Partners and its manager, Warren Lichtenstein, "pulled off a classic 'bait and switch' by stripping investors of what they had purchased and replacing it with something entirely different."ACF, a manufacturer of railcars and railcar components, and, according to the documents, affiliated with billionaire investor Carl Icahn, invested $15 million in 2005 with Steel Partners Offshore Fund Ltd, which became Steel Partners II (Offshore) Ltd.Bank of America referred calls to attorney Keith Schaitkin at Icahn Associates, who referred Reuters to the court documents.Steel Partners said it does not believe the lawsuit has any merit."We intend to vigorously contest it in court in order to protect the interests of the Partnership and all of our investors," the firm said in a statement.The court documents said that while Lichtenstein had originally promised to invest in cheaply valued small companies and put no more than 25 percent of the fund's assets into illiquid investments and special situations, he acknowledged in December that things had changed.According to the lawsuit, 38 percent of Steel's investors demanded their money back late last year in the wake of heavy losses, but Steel Partners suspended redemptions.The lawsuit said that instead of selling assets to raise cash to meet clients' demands for their money, Lichtenstein planned to turn the portfolio into a public company to deal with withdrawal notices.The lawsuit said Lichtenstein spoke with Icahn on December 24 about "his plans for the Fund and how to satisfy the redemption requests."Lichtenstein told Icahn there would be advance notice of the proposed plan and meetings with investors in early January and that no action would be taken to implement the plan until February at the earliest, according to the documents.The lawsuit also claims that by December 31, the Fund had transferred all of its investments to a non-SEC reporting 'public' shell company and that all of this had been done "without the knowledge and consent of investors."

Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Company ("Lilly") will pay federal and state governments more than $1.4 billion

Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Company ("Lilly") will pay federal and state governments more than $1.4 billion to remedy a wide-ranging, off-label marketing scheme for its prescription drug, Zyprexa(R). This settlement is the largest qui tam settlement in the history of the False Claims Act. Stephen A. Sheller, a well-known mass tort and class action lawyer from Philadelphia, filed the first Complaint in the case in February 2003, bringing the off-label drug allegations to the government under seal as required by law. Today, after six years, the Department of Justice settled with Lilly the allegations that six former Lilly drug marketing representative whistleblowers brought to Sheller.Lilly will pay more than $1.4 billion for its illegal off-label marketing of the antipsychotic drug, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania announced. Zyprexa is Lilly's top-selling drug with worldwide sales of nearly $40 billion since its approval in 1996.In today's settlement, Lilly will pay $800 million in civil penalties and plead guilty to criminal charges, paying an additional $600 million fine. The six whistleblowers who brought the Complaint against the drug company will share in approximately 18 percent of the federal and qualifying states' recoveries, Sheller said.Related complaints filed by other law firms in 2005, 2006 and 2007 were ultimately consolidated into Sheller's first-filed Complaint."The reason the settlement and fine are record-breaking is because Eli Lilly perpetrated an outrageous fraud on the American government and taxpayers" said Sheller.
The whistleblowers represented by Sheller, two with 27 or more years' service at Lilly, expressed concern through proper channels about Lilly's improper marketing practices. All six whistleblowers were eventually fired or forced to resign. One sales representative, who also is a pharmacist, contacted the company hotline regarding unethical sales practices but received no response, according to the Complaint.

Zyprexa is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ("FDA") for very limited conditions - schizophrenia and a specific type of bipolar disorder. Under FDA rules, prescription drug manufacturers and marketers may only promote their products for approved uses.

To boost sales, Eli Lilly marketed Zyprexa for numerous off-label uses including Alzheimer's, depression and dementia according to Sheller's Complaint.
Eli Lilly's off-label sales strategies were very effective. The government's investigation found that a substantial amount of Zyprexa sales were for off-label uses, particularly in children and the elderly

Paul Timothy Moore, 61, of Columbia, and nine others were charged in a federal complaint with theft of federal program funds, mail fraud, wire fraud

Paul Timothy Moore, 61, of Columbia, and nine others were charged in a federal complaint with theft of federal program funds, mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy, for their alleged roles in a scheme to embezzle more than $5.5 million dollars from DSS.DSS is one of the largest state agencies, with 4,400 employees and an annual budget of over $1.2 billion dollars. It is responsible for overseeing programs ranging from protecting children and the elderly from abuse to providing food and temporary financial assistance to the needy. The complaint and arrest warrants were signed this morning by U.S. Magistrate Judge Paige J. Gossett in Columbia.An affidavit presented by a U.S. Secret Service Agent outlined the scheme:
Moore allegedly used his position as the agency’s finance director to authorize the issuance of about 761 DSS checks, averaging about $7,000 each, between May 2004 and October 2008. The checks were made payable to names, which authorities believe were provided by a co-conspirator, Jonathon Moses, 42, of Columbia, who recruited people to cash the checks and split the proceeds.Eight other people are suspected of having cashed some of the checks and/or having recruited others into the scheme: Herbert McKie, 27, Aisha Leheva Crumpton, 23, Tyra L. Goodson, 36, Nova Kathleen Johnson, 40, and Sandra Denease Smith, 45, all of Columbia; and Gwendolyn Robinson, 41, Ortyse S. Mazone, 37, and Calandra Fabary Thomas, 38, all of Aiken.Moore and Moses were arrested this morning and remain in custody until making an initial appearance in federal court in Columbia later today.Wilkins said he expects additional arrests.
The maximum penalty for theft of federal program funds and conspiracy is 10 years and a fine of $250,000; mail fraud and wire fraud each carry a maximum sentence of 20 years and a $250,000 fine.

Marcus Schrenker, 38, was at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, where he was banned from seeing visitors and under watch of U.S. Marshals and guards

Marcus Schrenker, 38, was at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, where he was banned from seeing visitors and under watch of U.S. Marshals and guards. He was expected to remain at the hospital until at least today, said Scott Wilson, a judicial security inspector for the U.S. Marshals' service in the Northern District of Florida.Schrenker, who is president and chief executive of The Icon Group and a handful of small affiliated financial companies, faces financial fraud charges in Indiana, where state regulators have said it appears he misappropriated hundreds of thousands of dollars in client money.He first will be tried in a Florida federal court on charges that he faked a distress call to authorities. Once he is released from the hospital, Schrenker will be taken to jail in Pensacola, Fla., where he will await trial.Schrenker, a certified pilot, had departed in his plane from Anderson Municipal Airport and said he was headed to Destin, Fla. He made a distress call over central Alabama late Sunday, saying the window of his plane shattered while he was flying. Authorities, however, said the plane's window was not shattered.Schrenker set the plane on autopilot and parachuted from it near Childersburg, Ala. The plane flew close to houses before crashing into a swampy area near Pensacola.Authorities say he then made his way to a motorcycle he had stashed in a nearby town and rode it to a KOA campground in Chattahoochee, Fla.U.S. Marshals arrested Schrenker at the KOA campground late Tuesday. They found him in a tent, nearly unconscious and bleeding profusely from a slit wrist.In the weeks before his aborted flight, Schrenker's lavish Geist home and his Fishers business were searched by the Indiana secretary of state's securities division, which seized financial records and froze assets.He is charged with two felony counts alleging he worked as an investment adviser without being registered. His registration was terminated Dec. 31, but investigators say he continued dealing with clients after that.Schrenker's wife, Michelle, filed for divorce Dec. 30.Her lawyer, Mary Schmid, has released a statement saying Michelle Schrenker wanted to end the marriage because her husband had an affair and her decision "in no way was based on the investment fraud of which he is accused."Although she is not charged in the current state complaints, authorities said bank deposit slips in Michelle Schrenker's name and a company envelope with her name on it were among items seized by state investigators in a search of the home and Marcus Schrenker's offices last month.

Missing investment manager Marcus Schrenker's theft conviction

Missing investment manager Marcus Schrenker's , whose small plane crashed Sunday night en route to Florida in what may have been an attempt to fake his own death, over the years convinced dozens of active and retired Delta pilots to allow him to manage their retirement accounts. Marcus Schrenker's theft conviction, involvement in securities lawsuits filed against him by past clients and questions about whether he was reporting all of his income to U.S. tax officials started to unravel more than two years ago in an unlikely place for the aviation buff — Delta Air Lines' bankruptcy case.Then, in 2006, according to court records, he turned his attention to Delta's bankruptcy case, enlisting a group of pilots opposed to Delta's plan to terminate their pension plan to let him help them fight Delta."He had a way about him — you trusted the guy," David M. Smith, one of the retired pilots, said Tuesday. "He was very credible. He talked a good story. So, we entrusted him with a task he never produced."Two days before the Sept. 1, 2006, hearing at which Schrenker was supposed to testify about an analysis he had done that challenged Delta's assertions about the viability of its pension plan, he suddenly withdrew from the case.He literally was a no-show," Smith recalled. "He literally just disappeared. We were shocked at the whole thing."It's not exactly clear if Schrenker received any money for his services in the Delta case — Smith said he didn't pay him any money for his help — but after his withdrawal from the case, the retired pilots were unsuccessful in stopping Delta from terminating the pension plan, and the group accepted a small settlement from the airline."I think we would have been more successful if we had not had him in the first place," Smith said of Schrenker. "He was a vast distraction."Smith, 59, believes Schrenker may again be running from his past, which Smith got a glimpse of after Schrenker was deposed by a Delta lawyer just days before the 2006 hearing that Schrenker didn't attend."I believe he was scared to death that Delta was going to expose him," Smith said.One of the attorneys that represented the retired pilots group, Sherwin Kaplan, declined to comment about Schrenker. Another attorney who represented the group and was an advocate for Schrenker during the Delta deposition, Sara Pikofsky, did not return several phone calls to her office seeking comment. A lawyer who represented Schrenker in a 2003 bankruptcy case, Orval Schierholz, did not immediately return a call to an Indiana home listed in his name.According to the deposition conducted Aug. 27, 2006, Schrenker was charged in 1990 in Porter County, Indiana, with receiving stolen property involving the theft of jewelry from a home. Documents Delta's lawyer produced during the deposition show he was sentenced to 16 days in county jail. Schrenker had said earlier in the deposition that he had only received probation for the offense and that his record was later expunged.The lawyer also questioned Schrenker about several securities lawsuits filed against him by past clients.
"They were lawsuits that were filed around the surroundings of 9/11," Schrenker responded, referring to the terror attacks of Spt. 11, 2001 that involved four hijacked airliners. "It was one attorney representing three or four people who indicated in their filings that we should have known the events of 9/11 could have happened and the securities accounts could have dropped."Then there was the matter of the Internal Revenue Service.Bankruptcy 7 liquidation petitions were filed on Schrenker's behalf in bankruptcy court in 1991 and 2003, according to records produced by Delta's lawyer during the deposition.In the 2003 case, according to records produced during the deposition, the court accused Schrenker of not disclosing thousands of dollars in monthly income to the court and not reporting the income on his tax returns.A court-appointed trustee filed documents alleging that in the months prior to filing the 2003 bankruptcy petition, Schrenker's business bought more than $29,000 in audio/visual equipment and ordered $16,000 worth of landscaping services that were provided to Schrenker's home. The documents accused Schrenker of "fraudulent conveyance," according to statements by Delta's lawyer during the deposition.Schrenker defended the purchase of the equipment for his business. He also insisted the landscaping was for his office, not his home."All these fraudulent conveyances, the trustee is obviously motivated to make it appear as we've done something fraudulent because they recover 33 percent of every dollar that they can squeeze out of these small companies," Schrenker said during the deposition.

Satyam's disgraced founder Ramalinga Raju and his brother Rama Raju were sent to judicial custody for 14 days

Satyam's disgraced founder Ramalinga Raju and his brother Rama Raju were sent to judicial custody for 14 days on Saturday while the CFO was picked up for questioning, as the government and regulator SEBI huddled in Delhi to put a new management together to run the IT company.Raju, who three days ago disclosed a financial fraud in the company running into thousands of crores over several years, and his brother were produced before the 6th Chief Metropolitan Magistrate who remanded them to judicial custody till January 23, their lawyer Bharat Kumar said.

Richard T. Nelson, the former general counsel of Peregrine Systems Inc., admitted Thursday in U.S. District Court to inflating the company's revenue

Former executive for a San Diego-based software company who failed to correct false and misleading financial statements has pleaded guilty to bank fraud.
Richard T. Nelson, the former general counsel of Peregrine Systems Inc., admitted Thursday in U.S. District Court to inflating the company's revenue in statements to banks. Prosecutors say 18 Peregrine executives, including former Chief Executive Stephen Gardner, have been charged with overstating revenue from 1999 to 2001 to inflate the company's stock value. Gardner was sentenced last month to eight years in prison. Nelson admitted he got a $150 million line of credit for the company, even though he knew the company's financial statements were false. After Peregrine disclosed the improprieties, shareholders lost an estimated $3 billion. The company filed for bankruptcy and was eventually was sold to Hewlett-Packard.

Satyam Computer Services,Indias Enron Satyam's chairman, Ramalinga Raju arrested

Satyam Computer Services, an outsourcing company that serves more than a third of the Fortune 500, had been significantly inflating its earnings and assets for years. According to the Satyam's chairman, Ramalinga Raju, more than $1 billion in cash and bank loans the company listed in assets were simply nonexistent. Satyam's clients have included General Electric, General Motors and U.S. government, and already the scandal is being compared to the Enron collapse.Such a significant and far-reaching fraud naturally has serious implications for the United States. Namely, whatever happened to the kind of can-do fraudulent American spirit we used to have? Our great nation used to be number one in perpetrating financial misdoings. Now it appears that not only are Indian companies taking away American jobs, but they're also taking away American felonies.First of all, sending fraud overseas is a slap in the face to unskilled CEOs at home who can do little more than skim money off the top and create offshore accounts. Additionally, outsourcing fraud exploits lower paid criminals. The Satyam fraud amounts to $1.04 billion, a piddling sum when compared with the $50 billion lost in the American Madoff scandal.But most importantly, when white-collar crime is outsourced, we simply can not expect the same quality of service we get when being defrauded domestically. American frauds have destroyed companies, wrecked charities, wiped out retirement and college savings and ruined lives. They have done so quickly, efficiently and completely. Outsourced fraud like the Satyam case, however, has forced some companies to investigate their practices and perhaps reorganize the partners with whom they do business.

Sunshine Coast couple fleeced in a Nigerian money scam have been charged with fraud after allegedly netting more than $4m in the same operation.

Sunshine Coast couple fleeced in a Nigerian money scam have been charged with fraud after allegedly netting more than $4m in the same operation.Police allege the 48-year-old man and 40-year-old woman became victims of fraud when they sent money to suspected Nigerian fraudsters in September, 2003.It is believed they were invited to take part in a Nigerian oil contract but the contract did not exist.The couple then allegedly invited people to take part in the fraud and 12 people sent more than $4.3 million to the alleged Nigerian criminals.The pair are among six people charged in relation to the scam.Police minister Judy Spence said people continued to fall victim to the schemes despite warnings by police.Ms Spence said the scams were not new but in the current economic climate, people were more likely to fall for get-rich-quick schemes."People looking for an easy way out of their financial and mortgage stress can make for easy victims," she said."People need to realise there is no such thing as easy money and any scheme that promises massive returns for a small investment will inevitably turn out to be a scam that could cost a victim their entire life savings."Most amazing of all, even after police issue warnings to individuals who have already sent money police often find themselves going back to find these same people have sent even more money. They end up losing massive amounts."Queensland Police fraud and corporate crime Detective Superintendent Brian Hay said there were precautions people could take to make sure they did not fall victim to Nigerian scams."If you don’t know the person asking you for money or don’t know enough about the operation then don’t send the money," he said."Fraudsters operate on the assumption that victims will see the opportunity rather than applying common sense or logic to these schemes."Time and time again we state that if it seems too good to be true, then it often is."He warned that fraudsters may also send what appeared to be legitimate paperwork as evidence but the documents would also be fraudulent.More information about how to protect yourself from the scams can be found on the Queensland Police website.The Coast couple are each due to face two counts of fraud in a Maroochydore Magistrates Court today.

Ramalinga Raju, resigned after revealing that he had systematically falsified accounts

Satyam Computer Services, a leading Indian outsourcing company that serves more than a third of the Fortune 500 companies, significantly inflated its earnings and assets for years, the chairman and co-founder said Wednesday, roiling Indian stock markets and throwing the industry into turmoil. The chairman, Ramalinga Raju, resigned after revealing that he had systematically falsified accounts as the company expanded from a handful of employees into a back office giant with a work force of 53,000 and operations in 66 countries. Mr. Raju said Wednesday that 50.4 billion rupees, or $1.04 billion, of the 53.6 billion rupees in cash and bank loans the company listed in assets for its second quarter, which ended in September, were nonexistent. Revenues for the quarter were 20 percent lower than the 27 billion rupees reported, and the company’s operating margin was a fraction of what it declared, he said Wednesday in a letter to directors that was distributed by the Bombay Stock Exchange. Satyam serves as the back office for some of the largest banks, manufacturers, health care and media companies in the world, handling everything from computer systems to customer service. Clients have included General Electric, General Motors, Nestlé and the United States government. In some cases, Satyam is even responsible for clients’ finances and accounting. The revelations could cause a major shake-up in India’s enormous outsourcing industry, analysts said, and may force many large companies to investigate and perhaps revamp their back offices. “This development is going to have a major impact on Satyam’s business with its clients,” said analysts with Religare Hichens Harrison on Wednesday. In the short term “we will see lot of Satyam’s clients migrating to competition like Infosys, TCS and Wipro,” they said. Satyam is the fourth-largest outsourcing firm after the three named. In the four-and-a-half page letter distributed by the Bombay stock exchange, Mr. Raju described a small discrepancy that grew beyond his control. “What started as a marginal gap between actual operating profit and the one reflected in the books of accounts continued to grow over the years. It has attained unmanageable proportions as the size of company operations grew,” he wrote. “It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten.”

Mr. Raju said he had attempted and failed to bridge the gap, including an attempt in December to buy two construction firms in which the company’s founders held stakes. Speaking of a “deep regret” and a “tremendous burden,” Mr. Raju said that neither he nor co-founder and managing director B. Rama Raju had “taken one rupee/dollar from the company.” He said the board had no knowledge of the situation, nor did his or the managing director’s families.

The size and scope of the fraud raises questions about regulatory oversight in India and beyond. In addition to India, Satyam has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange since 2001, and on Euronext since January of 2008. The company has been audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers since its listing on the New York Stock exchange.

Satyam has been under close scrutiny in recent months, after an October report that the company had been banned from World Bank contracts for installing spy software on some World Bank computers. Satyam denied the accusation but in December, the World Bank confirmed without elaboration on the cause that Satyam had been banned. Also in December, Satyam’s investors revolted after the company proposed buying two firms with ties to Mr. Raju’s sons. On Dec. 30, analysts with Forrester Research warned that corporations that rely on Satyam might ultimately need to stop doing business with the company. “Firms should take the initial steps of reviewing the exit clauses in their current Satyam contracts,” in case management or direction of the company changed, Forrester said.

The scandal raised questions over accounting standards in India as a whole, as observers asked whether similar problems might lie buried elsewhere. The risk premium for Indian companies will rise in investors’ eyes, said Nilesh Jasani, India strategist at Credit Suisse.

R.K. Gupta, managing director at Taurus Asset Management in New Delhi, told Reuters: “If a company’s chairman himself says they built fictitious assets, who do you believe here?” The fraud has “put a question mark on the entire corporate governance system in India,” he said.

News of the scandal — quickly compared to the collapse of Enron — sent jitters through the Indian stock market, and the benchmark Sensex index fell more than 5 percent. Shares in Satyam fell more than 70 percent. Just a few months ago, Mr. Raju was trying to persuade investors that the company was sound. In October, he surprised analysts with better than expected results, saying he was “pleased” that the company had “achieved this in a challenging global macroeconomic environment, and amidst the volatile currency scenario that became reality.” But by late December, it seems he had little support from the board or investors and four of the company’s directors resigned in recent weeks. Satyam recently retained Merrill Lynch for strategic advice, a move that is generally a precursor to a sale. Mr. Raju said in his statement that he “sincerely apologized” to shareholders and employees and asked them to stand by the company. “I am now prepared to subject myself to the laws of the land and face consequences thereof,” he said.

$1 billion Miami life insurance fraud

Four men are facing federal charges in a $1 billion Miami life insurance fraud first exposed in 2004.A 25-count grand jury indictment Monday charges the four played roles in a scam that affected more than 28,000 Mutual Benefits Corp. investors. The company sold investments based on life insurance policies for the elderly, AIDS patients and terminally ill people. The longer a person lives, the less valuable the investment becomes.Prosecutors say MBC failed to disclose risks, falsified life expectancy figures and mismanaged premium funds.Federal regulators closed MBC in 2004 and its former president was previously convicted of securities fraud. Those charged in the latest indictment include two former MBC executives and two attorneys.

guided tour of the sophisticated credit card forgery operation run

Detective Bob Watts of the Newport Beach Police Department takes us on a guided tour of the sophisticated credit card forgery operation run by Chris Aragon, an associate of Max Butler, the uber hacker I profiled for this month's Wired. Aragon made a living turning Butler's stolen credit card data into near-perfect forgeries, complete with holograms. Here's how.

New wave of unwitting victims may emerge from Mr Madoff's investment scheme.

Role of America's federally regulated banks in the $50 billion Bernard Madoff investment scandal has come into question after it emerged that a number of victims of his alleged Ponzi scheme thought they had invested their money with an ordinary bank. Mr Madoff, 70, is alleged almost a month ago to have told his sons Mark and Andrew, who worked for him, that he was “finished” and that their investment firm was a giant Ponzi scheme. He has been charged with securities fraud and is under house arrest and is electronically tagged.

Two law firms in Florida, which are gathering claims from Madoff victims, are both representing a couple who say that they believed that they had invested about $1 million (£688,000) with the Westport National Bank, a regulated savings bank in Connecticut, rather than with Mr Madoff.

The Florida case raises concern that a new wave of unwitting victims may emerge from Mr Madoff's investment scheme. The FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are already investigating the role of certain hedge funds that provided Mr Madoff with new clients. The biggest of these is Fairfield Greenwich, a Connecticut hedge fund believed to have lost about half its assets, totalling $7.3 billion, to Mr Madoff's scheme.

The Florida couple, whom lawyers declined to name, received a letter from the bank dated December 12, the day that Mr Madoff was charged with fraud, explaining: “You currently have a custodian agreement with Westport National Bank [...] you gave full discretionary authority to Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities.”

According to Craig Stein, an attorney with Stein & Pinsky in Boca Raton, Florida, the couple had no inkling of their exposure to Mr Madoff and received annual statements from the bank that showed deductions for custodial and record-keeping fees that added up to 4 per cent a year, or $40,000 at the peak of their investment. Mr Stein said that his clients had been introduced, with other investors in Westport, by a “promoter”. Westport National Bank insists that “the bank has not invested any of its own funds or the funds of its depositors with Madoff, and the bank has not advised any customer of anybody else to invest with Madoff”. The implication is that the investment must have gone via another route, therefore.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, America's banking regulator, refused to be comment on whether it was questioning Westport or investigating whether US banks played a role in helping Mr Madoff to create what is described as the world's biggest fraud. The two Florida law firms have also claimed that those eligible to join his fund needed to be far less rich than first believed. When the scandal came to light almost a month ago, it was thought that new clients had to be prepared to invest at least $10 million in order to qualify for their money to be managed by Mr Madoff. However, according to Mr Stein and Adam Rabin, of McCabe Rabin, a law firm in West Palm Beach, Florida, investors were eligible with sums of about $100,000. Both attorneys also said that they had been approached by victims of modest means who had joined Mr Madoff's investment fund by pooling their savings.

Samata Co-operative bank case investigation the amount involved is likely to snowball to more than Rs 200 crore.

Samata Co-operative bank case investigation the amount involved is likely to snowball to more than Rs 200 crore. State criminal investigation department (CID) is unearthing more stunning facts like even fruit and movie posters being accepted as securities for loans, and insiders siphoning off huge amounts of funds. Seizure of properties, purchased with the illegally procured loans, is also on the cards.
Moreover, around six auditors including an internal one and at least 27 more borrowers have been brought under scanner by CID. A source said these borrowers are likely to have siphoned off nearly Rs 103 crore. Several new accounts have been unearthed by the toiling sleuths. “The scam is getting larger from the earlier figure of around Rs 145 crores. Several mind-boggling facts are tumbling out now as CID has began to unearth documents and evidence of fraud which had so far remained hidden,” said Yashasvi Yadav, superintendent of police, state CID. “Names of the borrowers who embezzled huge amounts but were not named in the FIR are surfacing. We suspect auditors too had a role to play, especially after year 2000. The scam was very evident then. The auditors should have pointed out violations of banking rules or RBI guidelines but that was not the case,” said Yadav who has put a team in place to investigate the case minutely.

Steven Bartlett was accused of misappropriating close to $1.6 million intended for home construction for his own personal use.

One of the largest homebuilder fraud cases in Florida's history ended in a guilty verdict for Steven Bartlett. Bartlett was accused of misappropriating close to $1.6 million intended for home construction for his own personal use.More than 100 witnesses took the stand and spoke of losing life savings by contracting with Coral Bay Construction to build their home. Bartlett's attorney argued that the homes were going to be built and blamed sloppy bookkeeping for the problems.Jury acquits suspect of DUI manslaughterA jury acquitted Brian Gomes of DUI manslaughter two years after a crash that killed his friend, Marc Collins. Instead, he was found guilty of DUI and driving on a suspended license - essentially for the events leading up to the crash.The verdict surprised many involved in the trial, including the prosecutor, Bill Catto. Catto neglected to include Gomes' driving record - which included three prior DUIs - in the charging information, so the sentence was treated as a first offense. Instead of five years in prison, he was given 11 months in jail.

Tremont Group Holdings Inc., a hedge- fund firm owned by Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co., was sued again for investing with financier Bernard

Tremont Group Holdings Inc., a hedge- fund firm owned by Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co., was sued again for investing with financier Bernard Madoff, who allegedly confessed to a $50 billion Ponzi scheme. Group Defined Pension Plan & Trust, a Jersey City, New Jersey-based investor, sued Tremont and its auditor, Ernst & Young LLP, over claims they missed warnings about the alleged scheme. The complaint, filed today in Manhattan federal court, seeks class-action, or group, status.

Tremont already faces a lawsuit filed Dec. 22 on behalf of investors who may have lost $3.1 billion, according to the complaint. Funds including Walter Noel’s Fairfield Greenwich Group, which invested $7.5 billion, and Ezra Merkin’s Gabriel Capital LP and Ascot Partners LP, were also sued for investing in Madoff’s firm following his arrest Dec. 11.

“You are looking at the tip of an iceberg here,” the pension plan’s lawyer, Fred Longer, said today in an interview. “Entities like Tremont really show the kings here have no clothes. They blindly go into these investments and they’re not disclosing the fact that the investments aren’t well investigated.”

Unique Gems International Pension Fund of America and Focus Financial Associates are just a few of the local companies that ripped off millions from i

Unique Gems International Pension Fund of America and Focus Financial Associates are just a few of the local companies that ripped off millions from investors.This ''is one of the more egregious affinity frauds we have seen in South Florida,'' Verges said. ``He's banking on that familiarity with that community to steal from them.''
The SEC obtained a court order halting business at Creative Capital and another firm, A Creative Capital Concepts, which the agency claims collected more than $23 million, primarily from Haitian-American investors. Many live in South Florida and were told they could double their investment in three months through stock and options trading.A federal judge signed an order freezing Theodule's and the companies' assets. A receiver has been appointed to oversee the companies.
Attempts to reach Theodule and his attorney were unsuccessful.On a Haitian radio station, Theodule, 48, denied he had stolen investors' money.''If I ran off with the money, I would be somewhere in Africa with four women fanning me down right now,'' he said on WPBR 1340-AM.He said the economy was the reason why some investors had not received their money. But he insisted the investments were working.The SEC, though, says Theodule lost at least $18 million over the past year. It also alleges Theodule, who now lives in Georgia, commingled investors' funds with his personal money and took at least $3.8 million for himself and his family.

Kevin Bacon and his wife, Kyra Sedgwick, had investments with Bernie Madoff

Kevin Bacon and his wife, Kyra Sedgwick, had investments with Bernie Madoff, Bacon's publicist says. Bacon, the prolific actor, and his wife, fellow screen star Kyra Sedgwick, had investments with Madoff, the financial guru accused of swindling his clients out of $50 billion in a massive Ponzi scheme, Bacon's publicist told CNN Tuesday.Publicist Allen Eichhorn did not say how much the couple lost, declining to address reports that the figure was in the millions."Let's not speculate," he said.
Dreamworks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg and a charity run by director Steven Speilberg mark some of the other Hollywood heavyweights allegedly bilked by Madoff, who remains in his Manhattan home on house arrest after posting $10 million bail.
Bacon, whose credits include "Mystic River," "Footloose" and the recent political biopic "Frost/Nixon," has appeared in 64 movies or television programs since 1978, according to the Internet

Anurag Dikshit

In December 2008, Anurag Dikshit, a billionaire Indian businessman, the richest man in Gibraltar and the 207th richest man in the world, a co-founder of PartyGaming, parent company of the world's leading online poker site PartyPoker.com, pled guilty to illegal Internet gambling and agreed to cooperate with the U.S. Justice Department in an investigation of Party Gaming. Dikshit entered the plea to one count of online gambling in violation of the Federal Wire Act and agreed to forfeit $300 million. "I came to believe it was in fact illegal under U.S. law," Dikshit told U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in New York, referring to PartyGaming’s activity. "I have taken full responsibility for my actions."

Well, Bikshit is probably the only one criminal who admitted his guilt at once while being ready to pay off the required fine unlike other cyber crime committers we mentioned above. And unlike e-gold or e-bullion executives Dikshit didn’t try to defend himself against the charges and imposed fines with the help of high qualified attorneys.

Pavel Vrublevsky

Pavel Vrublevsky, or RedEye, is the only one actor in our nominees list who is still at large and is still executing his numerous business schemes that bring him fortunes. With a background of an average fraudster he plays the role of a reputable entrepreneur via its new company known today as ChronoPay.

RedEye made the first move towards his capital by creating a disgusting site Pornocruto.es, the content of which shocks even adults. Within a few months that affiliate program has boosted the funds in the accounts of Pavel Vrublevsky. However, RedEye understood that he needed to gather all potential customers in one place. And the task was to make it so that people come to Vrublevsky themselves. The solution was found very quickly. He has created a forum Crutop.nu, a community that has joined all those who cashed on gay porn, child porno, rape porn, zoo porn, necro porn, freak porn and other similar niches.

The most infamous project of RedEye that scammed even the Internet scammers and violators themselves was Fethard.biz, the first financial services project launched by Pavel. As we already wrote, RedEye was providing the services highly demanded by the webmasters worldwide. Everybody understood that fethard was conducting its transactions via the offshore banks without granting any guarantees of funds security. RedEye tried to capitalize on everything. Some people know the story when Pavel Vrublevsky, under the guise of common users, on one famous carder forum was selling some Fethard accounts and allowed to receive big amounts from accounts in the system. Certainly such offers had interested dozens of carders (people stealing credit card numbers) on carderplanet.com. Having sold the accounts with a good rating in his own system, RedEye has locked them.

In September 2007 Fethard blocked accounts of its users. Numerous businesses mostly illegal suffered big losses. RedEye made multiple promises in October 2007 that the new system will be introduced while the old accounts will be unblocked. But in fact new accounts were used to pay off for old debts and after it on March 2008 the system closed for good and all.

Henry T. Nicholas III

Henry T. Nicholas III

On June 5, 2008, Broadcom co-founder and former CEO Henry Nicholas III was indicted on charges of illegal stock-option backdating and of violations of federal narcotics laws. On July 14, 2006, Broadcom announced it had to subtract $750,000,000 from earnings due to stock options irregularities. On September 8, 2006 the amount was doubled to $1.5 billion. The company may also owe additional taxes. On January 24, 2007, it announced a restatement of its financial results from 1998 to 2003 that totaled $2.24 billion. On May 15, 2008, Samueli, Broadcom CTO, resigned as chairman of the board and took of a leave of absence as Chief Technology Officer after being named in a civil complaint by the SEC. Mr. Nicholas and William Ruehle, the former chief financial officer of Broadcom, were charged of improperly backdating stock options, forcing Broadcom to take a $2.2 billion write-down.

Besides, Henry Nicholas III also maintained several residences that were used to distribute and sell drugs, including cocaine and methamphetamine, and threatened to kill people if they talked about his activities. In one incident described in the indictment, Mr. Nicholas and his guests are said to have inhaled so much marijuana on a flight to Las Vegas from Orange County, Calif., that clouds of smoke and fumes drifted into the cockpit of the private plane and the pilot was required to put on an oxygen mask. Mr. Nicholas was also accused of hiring prostitutes not only for himself but also for customers and associates of Broadcom, and to have supplied them with drugs. And, according to the indictment, Mr. Nicholas “used threats of violence and death and payments of money to attempt to conceal his unlawful conduct.”

Mr. Nicholas used several residences in Orange County and Las Vegas, as well as a commercial office space called the “warehouse,” to distribute and use drugs, according to the unsealed indictments. Various code words, including “supplies,” “party favors” and “refreshments,” were used to describe the various drugs, the indictment said. But ecstasy is described as a particular favorite. According to the indictment, Mr. Nicholas gave some to an executive without his knowledge in July 1999 at the Woodstock concert in Rome, N.Y.

Arthur Budovsky

Arthur Budovsky, a co-founder of LibertyReserve, was indicted on July 26, 2006 for allegedly violating Article 13-B of New York State Banking Law. Article 13-B of the New York banking law states that it is a felony to transfer money without a license if one knowingly transmits $250,000 or more in a year from a single client in a year; $25,000 or more in 30 days; and $10,000 or more in a single transition.

As we already covered in our article dedicated to LibertyReserve on November 21, 2008, at that time when Budovsky was arrested along with his partner Vladimir Kats he owned illegal transmittal business GoldAge as well as such businesses as ECSN INC., EXECUTIVE COMMERCIAL SERVICES INC., INTERNETWORK MANAGEMENT INC., GGN INC., B TO B MARKETPLACE INC. and MGA INTERNATIONAL INC.

And while with the imprisonment of the founders of e-gold and e-bullion their services went dead after them, LibertyReserve is still operation on the web with a lot of users still trusting the company.

James Fayed

On Monday July 28, 2008 Jim Fayed's estranged wife Pamela Fayed was stabbed to death in a parking structure at 1875 E. Century Park in Century City, California. The crime occurred at 6:30PM in daylight and was overheard by numerous people who responded to the victim's screams. A surveillance camera recorded enough details for a rental car to be identified by license plate and for a suspect description to be announced. She was due to appear that day in one of several ongoing legal meetings in her divorce from Jim Fayed and was reportedly attempting to stop him from moving or hiding some of the joint assets involved in E-Bullion. On August 1, 2008 Jim Fayed was arrested under felony charges of conducting unlicensed money transactions via E-Bullion. Federal authorities have seized $60,000 in cash, $3,000,000 in gold bullion and a credit card that allegedly was used to pay for the rental car that fled from the murder scene.

Well, while one group of financial dealers are sacrificing thousands of people in order to make their fortune others prefer to get rid off just one person that poses an obstacle on their seizure of the money they are ‘eligible’ to possess. Surely the murder is not the only one crime committed by e-bullion owner Jim Fayed. It was just the last act in his fraudulent drama aimed at making profits. Money laundering and illegal money exchange were the first charges brought against him. People will remember James Fayed as one more e-gold like financial wheeler-dealer with a reputation of a wife-murderer on top.

Douglas Jackson

On November 20, 2008 Douglas Jackson along with other directors of e-gold and Gold & Silver Reserve company received their sentences from the federal judge. He was indicted in April 2007 of providing a haven for criminal activity like processing investment scams and payments for child pornography. Douglas Jackson faced a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $500,000 fine. But he spared a heavier fine because, according to his attorney, he's deeply in debt. Thus he was sentenced to pay only $200 fine with three years of probation and 300 hours of community service.

The case with Douglas Jackson is a typical sample of American freedoms dilemma. On one hand the law is expected to prevent illicit and adverse behavior of criminals that results in high material and emotional losses. On the other hand law should protect freedom of a person to keep his privacy safe from intrusion. Perhaps, Jackson is to blame for his quests for earnings as long as child porno-dealers are making huge profits on their production, but initially it is the government who should prevent such kind of felony to take place at all. But the law prefers inflict penalty on intermediaries after the crimes have been already committed many times by the true violators. Thus, that paltry similarity to the reputed business which was the e-gold service after it made trials to recover could no longer attract customers because they new that their privacy was no longer safe.

Bernard Madoff

Bernard Madoff

On December 11, 2008, at 8.30 a.m. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents arrested Madoff on a tip-off from his sons, Andrew and Mark, and charged him with one count of securities fraud. On the day prior to his arrest, Madoff told his senior executives at the firm that the management and advisory segment of the business was "basically, a giant Ponzi scheme." Five days after his arrest, Madoff's assets and those of the firm were frozen and a receiver was appointed to handle the case. Madoff's alleged fraud may be valued at a loss of up to a US$50 billion in cash and securities. Banks from outside the U.S. have announced that they have potentially lost billions in U.S. dollars as a result. The FBI complaint states that Madoff told his sons he believed the losses from his scheme could exceed that $50 billion sum. To date, it is the largest investor fraud ever attributed to a single individual.

Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC has acted on the Wall Street stage as a top market maker since 1960! It is a history of 48 years. Often we feel more respect and confidence towards the institutions with a considerable time background which is natural inasmuch as long terms of existence are usually a sign of viability and good strategy. Well, ordinary mortals that believed in reliability of Madoff’s company are not to be counted because huge corporations and reputed foundations along with prominent film directors like Steven Spielberg invested their hard-earned money into the financial structure that in fact has nothing to pay to its investors.

One year brought the whole construction to an end! One year resulted in an immense loss. One year unveiled the ‘largest investor fraud ever attributed to a single individual’. Now it is hard to imagine what is there left in the world we can trust except ourselves.

Kingate Global, one of the biggest investors in Bernard Madoff’s alleged $50 billion fraud, explicitly warned its clients of the danger

Kingate Global, one of the biggest investors in Bernard Madoff’s alleged $50 billion fraud, explicitly warned its clients of the danger that the brokerage “could abscond with those assets,” and yet attracted $2.75 billion, The Financial Times reported, citing documents sent to investors.Kingate Global channelled its money to Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities to manage and highlighted the risk of giving custody of its assets Mr. Madoff, although he was not named in the documents. The investor also said it would not check the accuracy of statements he provided.The alert is the most explicit in a series of warnings from feeder funds that put almost all their cash with Mr. Madoff’s firm.Few of the funds named Mr. Madoff or his brokerage in their documents, while others insisted they were monitoring the performance of their manager to ensure trades were executed as claimed, the F.T. said.In its marketing documents, Fairfield Greenwich, which operated the biggest feeder fund, said that Madoff’s services were “essential to the continued operation of the fund.”

Val Southwick was sentenced in June to nine consecutive terms of one to 15 years in prison for securities fraud.

Val Southwick was sentenced in June to nine consecutive terms of one to 15 years in prison for securities fraud.At a Dec. 16 parole hearing for the 63-year-old, victims of his financial programs said they lost homes and millions in retirement funds in what has been described as one of Utah's largest Ponzi schemes.A rationale sheet used by the board shows it factored in more aggravating factors than mitigating factors in reaching its decision.

Ausaf Umar Siddiqui complaint that alleges he was involved in a "secret kickback scheme to defraud Fry's Electronics of millions of dollars.''

Ausaf Umar Siddiqui, 42,who goes by "Omar" and has been Fry's vice president of merchandising and operations, appeared in federal court today, where prosecutors filed a complaint that alleges he was involved in a "secret kickback scheme to defraud Fry's Electronics of millions of dollars.'' Fry's executives didn't know about the illegal kickbacks, the federal complaint states. The alleged scheme occurred from 2005 until mid-October when a Fry's high-level employee walked into Siddiqui's office at 600 E. Brokaw Road and saw confidential spreadsheets, letters and extraordinarily high commission amounts on Siddiqui's desk. Siddiqui is expected to be formally charged in U.S. District Court on Jan. 15, on counts of money-laundering and wire fraud.According to the complaint, which was unsealed today, Siddiqui convinced Fry's that the company should eliminate sales representatives on his accounts, and instead, he'd act as a middleman between vendors and Fry's. He promised that he'd save Fry's a lot of money that way. But instead, the complaint alleges, he ended up charging exorbitant commissions — up to 31 percent, or ten times the normal amount — to the

vendors, which he funneled to his own "straw'' company PC International. Vendors were guaranteed steady business, so Siddiqui would have a steady cash flow to pay off casinos. Siddiqui spent $162 million in three years at just two of his favorites, the MGM Grand Casino and Las Vegas Sands Casino, according to his bank statements detailed in the complaint written by IRS Agent Andres Gonzalez.

The complaint says Siddiqui made "secret, backroom sales contracts to vendors, and in return, vendors gave him a kickback.''
"It was his responsibility to find Fry's the best price,'' said IRS spokeswoman Arlette Lee. "He was allegedly causing Fry's to overpay millions on merchandise.'' None of the vendors are household names.After seeing the documents on Siddiqui's desk, the Fry's employee called the Internal Revenue Service. Federal agents swarmed Fry's corporate headquarters Friday and arrested Siddiqui, taking him away in handcuffs. Stunned co-workers watched as he was taken away.
Siddiqui was a "longtime friend" of John Fry, said Fry's spokesman Manuel Valerio. The reaction of employees and management to Siddiqui's arrest, he said, "is one of surprise and shock — and that's an understatement."He made it clear, however, that "anything that may have taken place that may have been wrongful, Fry's as a company has not been financially harmed nor have any of our customers been harmed through the purchase of products," he said.For his part, a clean-shaven Siddiqui appeared worried and serious in court today. He stood mostly silent, wearing the standard bright orange shirt of the Santa Clara County jail, where he was held over the weekend. Through his criminal attorney, Sam Polverino, he declined comment.
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Seeborg altered Siddiqui's no-bail conditions today, allowing him to post $300,000 bond and be monitored with an electronic bracelet. The judge also ordered Siddiqui to stay away from Las Vegas, and was assured through Siddiqui's lawyers that he wouldn't be flying there anymore to on the Fry's corporate jet, or casino-paid jets, which he apparently has done before.
"I know you do a great deal of travel to Las Vegas,'' Seeborg said. "That's not allowed anymore. Nevada is off limits.''Before setting his lowered bail, Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Moore and defense attorneys discussed how much Siddiqui is worth; revealing that he owns a $1 million Palo Alto condominium and a Ferrari.
A woman who appeared in court on Siddiqui's behalf declined comment. During the court hearing, conversations in court also revealed that Siddiqui has no close family; he is "estranged" from his siblings and his parents are deceased. He has no wife or children, and according to his civil attorney, who appeared as a "friend of the court,'' Siddiqui has several casinos after him to pay off gambling debts.

Mike Connell, Karl Rove's IT guru was killed late Friday night in a solo plane crash

Mike Connell, Karl Rove's IT guru--who was compelled six weeks ago to testify in an Ohio vote-tampering case--was killed late Friday night in a solo plane crash. His plane crashed into the garage of an empty house. Per Cybrinth CEO Stephen Spoonamore, Connell was also considered "vital to uncovering the truth" about the missing White House emails considered a critical link to the Justice Department and White House's involvement in the firings of nine US attorneys.

Shana Madoff, was a rules-compliance lawyer at the firm's market-making arm and the daughter of Bernard Madoff's brother Peter

Shana Madoff, Bernard Madoff's niece of the man who ran Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, didn't know of her uncle Bernie's arrest until authorities turned up at his 64th Street apartment in Manhattan, according to her spokesman. But her long tenure in the Madoff market-making business and deep Washington connections have swept her up in the scandal surrounding the firm, whose family bonds were once a source of comfort to investors.
Ms. Madoff was a rules-compliance lawyer at the firm's market-making arm and the daughter of Bernard Madoff's brother Peter, who was head of compliance at the firm.

Police will file fraud charges against Mikasa Foods President Mitsuo Fuyuki and some other persons, possibly in mid- January

Police will file fraud charges against Mikasa Foods President Mitsuo Fuyuki and some other persons, possibly in mid- January, in connection with the resale of imported rice tainted with pesticides for human consumption, according to investigative sources. The charges will be lodged against the 73-year-old president of the Osaka-based wholesaler and others by the joint team of investigators from the prefectural police headquarters from Osaka, Fukuoka and Kumamoto, the sources said.

In September, investigators searched Mikasa Foods and 27 relevant locations after the company drew public flak for diverting the imported rice officially designated as not fit for human consumption due to residual pesticides and fungal contamination for edible use.

The rice was sold as a material for industrial glue by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. The firm, which sold the rice to a total of 390 companies, including alcoholic beverage makers and other food makers, was raided on suspicion of breaching the food sanitation law. The firm is suspected of selling 110 tons of the Chinese-produced rice tainted with the pesticide methamidophos from around November last year to a rice wholesaler in Fukuoka Prefecture after buying the rice from the trading houses that imported it. The company is also suspected of disguising 5.4 tons of rice imported from Vietnam and contaminated with the pesticide acetamiprid as edible and selling it to a Kumamoto-based sake brewer in May.

Mikasa Foods bought the Vietnamese-grown rice at 19 yen per kilogram from the ministry, selling it to the maker and other sake brewers at 98 yen and raking in handsome profits from January to May, the investigative sources said.

Fuyuki, speaking at a news conference in September after revelations of the shadowy resale transactions, acknowledged having instructed his employees to perpetrate the deals to make profits. Then farm minister Seiichi Ota subsequently resigned to take the blame for the ministry's inability to detect the diversion of the rice for human consumption.

Polaroid Corp will be filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection

Polaroid Corp will be filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection which doesn’t surprise us, in this time of economic recession. The company wants to restructure its finances and is also investigating its parent company, Petters Group Worldwide for fraud!

Bernard Madoff, the man accused of masterminding a $US50 billion ($A73.5 billion) investment fraud, is under round-the-clock house arrest.

Bernard Madoff, the man accused of masterminding a $US50 billion ($A73.5 billion) investment fraud, is under round-the-clock house arrest.He's holed up in his $US7 million New York City apartment after prosecutors warned of his "harm or flight".Madoff, 70, has been subject to electronic monitoring and a 7 pm curfew under a December 17 court order. Now he is barred from leaving his Upper East Side apartment except for court appearances, and his building will be watched by security guards and video surveillance, according to a letter from prosecutors filed in federal court in Manhattan on Friday night Australian time. "The bail conditions are what the government has agreed to," Madoff's lawyer Ira Sorkin said.
He wouldn't say whether Madoff had been threatened.

Madoff was arrested earlier this month after telling his two sons and federal investigators that he had been using money from new investors to pay off old ones in a massive Ponzi scheme.

He said clients of New York-based Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC lost $US50 billion. The security service, which was put into place on the weekend, will watch Madoff's doors and will be able to send a signal from an observation post to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to the letter. One reason for the new bail conditions was "to prevent harm or flight," the government said. The New York Daily News last week quoted an unnamed source saying that Madoff and his family had been threatened if he didn't repay investors. Other bail conditions remain. Madoff posted a $US10 million bond, guaranteed by his wife and brother Peter, and he and his wife have agreed to surrender homes in Manhattan, Montauk, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida, if he flees. Madoff remains subject to electronic monitoring.
The Manhattan apartment is worth about $US7 million, according to bail papers.
Ruth Madoff, who hasn't been accused of wrongdoing, also has surrendered her passport. Madoff, who hasn't formally responded to charges against him, is due to return to court on January 12.

Four Finnish men are set to go on trial for a major investment scam

Four Finnish men are set to go on trial for a major investment scam. The men are suspected of conning investors out of some 800,000 euros. About 120 plaintiffs have joined the case. The prosecutor's office in Pirkanmaa prepared the case against the men who are suspected of aggravated fraud from the years 2004 to 2005. The men promised investors major returns on investments in foreign currency and oil through the company KMP Global Group Cooperation. A bank in Tampere reported suspicious activity to police after noting some 230,000 euros suddenly appeared in an individual account. Officials discovered that the money was deposited by Finnish investors. Some of the swindled investors also lost money in the WinCapita pyramid investment scam. Officials in Latvia, Estonia, the United States and Belgium assisted the prosecutor in putting together the case. The hearing is to begin in the Tampere District Court in February.

Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) could be a serious casualty of one of the largest investment frauds in history

Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) could be a serious casualty of one of the largest investment frauds in history, the New York Times reported Friday.

The US newspaper said ADIA - which is the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund - indirectly invested $400 million into Bernard L. Madoff’s scheme in 2005 through investment fund, Fairfield Sentry Fund.

This investment was revealed in a profile of the firm drawn up for a prospective buyer in 2007, according to the New York Times.A number of private investors, banks and investment firms were shocked to recently discover they had fallen victim to a fraudulent investment scheme after Madoff - a Wall Street broker and the former chairman of Nasdaq - was accused of running a multibillion-dollar scam.A note on Fairfield Greenwich Group's website states that more than half of its investments are tied up in vehicles connected to Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities (BLM).
Farfield said, as of Nov. 1, its assets under management totalled approximately $14.1 billion, of which approximately $7.5 billion was invested in vehicles connected to BLM.The New York Times said that Fairfield was one of BLM’s largest investors and ADIA in turn was one of Fairfield’s largest investors."Even after the investment authority took two significant redemptions from the fund, in April 2005 and 2006, its stake the following year of $132 million made up 2 percent of the fund’s assets under management," the newspaper said.

Anurag Dikshit Billionaire co-founder of an internet gambling company has pleaded guilty to violating US internet laws and agreed to forfeit $300m

Billionaire co-founder of an internet gambling company has pleaded guilty to violating US internet laws and agreed to forfeit $300m (£192m).Anurag Dikshit, co-founder of the UK-listed company PartyGaming, entered the plea in a New York federal court.He is charged with violating federal gambling laws, an offence which could incur a prison term of up to two years.Mr Dikshit, an Indian national with an estimated fortune of $1.6bn, declined to comment to reporters. The US justice department said Mr Dikshit, 37, had pleaded guilty to one count of “using the wires to transmit bets and wagering information”.

More firms around the globe disclosed ,Bernard Madoff’s financial records were “utterly unreliable” and will take six months to sort out

Bernard Madoff’s financial records were “utterly unreliable” and will take six months to sort out, said Stephen Harbeck, president of the Securities Investor Protection Corp. “There are some assets, but I have no idea what the relationships of the assets available are to the claims against them,” Harbeck said on Bloomberg Television. “The records are utterly unreliable on this case.” His comments came as Bank Medici AG of Austria became the latest lender to reveal a loss from Madoff’s alleged $50 billion fraud. Two funds at the Viennese bank, 75 percent owned by Chairman Sonja Kohn, invested $2.1 billion entirely in Madoff’s firm, the bank said today. Other victims included institutions and wealthy individuals from Tokyo to Paris. New York’s Yeshiva University said it lost $110 million, mostly through hedge funds controlled by trustee J. Ezra Merkin. U.S. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, meantime, told the Securities and Exchange Commission to explain how it failed to detect the “giant Ponzi scheme.”More firms around the globe disclosed they were caught up in the $50 billion fraud allegedly perpetrated by Bernard Madoff, a former chairman of Nasdaq.

* BANCO SANTANDER SA - Spain's largest bank said its investment fund, Optimal, has a 2.33 billion euro ($3.05 billion) exposure to Madoff Securities.

* TREMONT HOLDINGS INC - The hedge fund group's Rye Investment Management unit had virtually all of its assets invested with Madoff and lost roughly $3 billion, people familiar with Tremont said. Tremont is a unit of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co (MassMutual).

* ASCOT PARTNERS LLC - According to a Wall Street Journal report, the fund where former GMAC chairman Jacob Ezra Merkin is a money manager has an exposure of $1.8 billion.

* ACCESS INTERNATIONAL ADVISORS - According to a report by Bloomberg, Access has an exposure of $1.4 billion.

* FORTIS NV - The Dutch banking unit of the group recently acquired by the Dutch government said it may have a loss of up to 1 billion euros ($1.35 billion) due to loans made to funds that invested in Madoff Securities.

* HSBC HOLDINGS PLC - The banking and financial services group said it has potential exposure of $1 billion after providing financing to a small number of institutional clients who invested in funds with Madoff.

* BENBASSAT & CIE - The Swiss private bank has an exposure of $1.1 billion francs ($935 million), according to Le Temps.

* UNION BANCAIRE PRIVEE - The Swiss bank that invests in funds of hedge funds has lost about 1 billion francs ($850 million), according to Le Temps, citing unnamed banking sources.

* NATIXIS SA - The French bank said it could have a 450 million euro ($602 million) indirect exposure to Madoff.

* ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND GROUP PLC - The bank said it had exposure through trading and collateralized lending to funds of hedge funds invested with Madoff, with a potential loss of around 400 million pounds ($598 million).

* BNP PARIBAS SA - France's largest listed bank said it has a potential 350 million euro ($464 million) exposure.

* BBVA - Spain's second-largest bank said international operation has about 30 million euros of exposure to Madoff, and has a maximum potential loss from Madoff-linked investments of 300 million euros ($404 million).

* MAN GROUP PLC - The U.K. hedge fund said RMF, its fund of funds business, has about $360 million invested in two funds that are directly or indirectly subadvised by Madoff.

* DEXIA SA - The Belgian bank said private banking clients had exposure to funds invested in Madoff of 78 million euros ($107 million). Said bank was exposed through lending operations to funds exposed to Madoff funds to up to 164 million euros ($224 million).

* REICHMUTH & CO - The Swiss private bank said its fund of funds Reichmuth Matterhorn had an exposure to investments linked to Madoff that amounted to about $325 million.
* NOMURA HOLDINGS INC - Japan's biggest brokerage said it had a 27.5 billion yen ($303 million) exposure related to Madoff, but the impact on its capital would be limited.

* MAXAM CAPITAL MANAGEMENT LLC - The fund has lost about $280 million on funds invested with Madoff, a source familiar with the situation said.

* EIM GROUP - Le Temps reported that EIM Group, a fund of hedge funds, said it had a $230 million exposure.

* AOZORA BANK LTD - The Japanese bank said it had an estimated 12.4 billion yen ($137 million) indirect exposure to Madoff through invested funds. It said it expected only limited impact on its capital.

* UNICREDIT SPA (CRDI.MI: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) - The Italian bank said its own exposure to Madoff's alleged fraud is about 75 million euros ($101 million). Some funds in its Pioneer Investments unit "are exposed to Madoff indirectly through feeder funds," it said.

* NORDEA BANK AB - The Nordic region's biggest bank said its pension clients had an indirect exposure of 48 million euros ($66 million) to the alleged fraud.

* BENEDICT HENTSCH - Swiss private bank said its exposure to products linked to Madoff amounted to 56 million francs ($47 million), or less than 5 percent of assets under management.

* FAIRFIELD SENTRY LTD - The $7.3 billion hedge fund run by Walter Noel's Fairfield Greenwich Group said it had accounts with Madoff Investment Securities.

* KINGATE GLOBAL FUND LTD - The $2.8 billion hedge fund run by Kingate Management Ltd had invested in Madoff Investment Securities, according to sources.

* UBS AG - The investment bank unit of the Swiss financial group said it has a limited and insignificant counterparty exposure.

* BRAMDEAN ALTERNATIVES LTD - U.K. asset manager, headed by well known fund manager Nicola Horlick, said 9.5 percent of its holdings were exposed to Madoff.

* THE TOWN OF FAIRFIELD, CONN. EMPLOYEES PENSION FUND - The Connecticut pension fund said it had about $40 million managed by Madoff.

* BOSTON PROPERTIES INC BXP.N - Chairman Mort Zuckerman told CNBC television that about 10 percent of one of his charitable trusts was invested with Madoff and had lost about $30 million.

* CHAIS FAMILY FOUNDATION - The group, which donates about $12.5 million annually to Jewish causes, said it will be forced to close after the entire fund was invested with Madoff.

* AUSTIN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT - The company managed money for the Massachusetts state pension fund, which lost $12 million with Madoff, it said.

* BANK MEDICI - The closely held Austrian bank serving wealthy clients and institutional investors, said it held products affected by the fraud, but was not at risk in case of a loss. It declined to say how big the exposure was.

The list grows endlessly.It is clear that the customers of the Madoff firm need the protections available under federal law," Stephen Harbeck, president and CEO of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), which helps investors at failed brokerage firms, said Monday in a statement.But, he warned, "it is unlikely that SIPC and the trustee will be able to transfer the customer accounts of the firm to a solvent brokerage firm" due to the state of the firm's records.Shares in Santander, the biggest bank in Spain and the second-largest in Europe after HSBC, plunged after the lender said it had exposed more than three billion dollars to Madoff Investment Securities in New York.

Chief Executive Robert Ferguson was sentenced to two years in prison

Former General Re Corp. Chief Executive Robert Ferguson was sentenced to two years in prison Tuesday for helping American International Group Inc. (AIG) inflate its financial statements.Ferguson and four other insurance executives were convicted in February on charges of conspiracy, securities fraud, mail fraud and false statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission.Prosecutors said Ferguson and others facilitated two sham reinsurance transactions in 2000 and 2001 that allowed AIG to falsely inflate its reserves by $500 million, which helped the company boost its stock price.A federal judge in Connecticut, where the case was tried, found that AIG shareholders lost between $544 million and $597 million because of the fraud.AIG restated the transactions in 2005.In addition to the prison term, Ferguson was fined $200,000.

Austria's Bank Medici said Tuesday it was affected by a major Wall Street fraud scandal

Wall Street money manager Bernard Madoff, 70, was arrested last week in what prosecutors say was a $50 billion scheme to defraud investors, including the world's big banks, the rich and the famous."In connection with the Madoff fraud case, the bank itself is invested but due to its solid capital structure it is not at risk in any way," the Vienna-based bank said in a statement.Medici also indicated that its Herald USA Fund and Herald Luxemburg Fund — with a total volume of $2.1 billion (1.5 billion euros) — were exposed to the scam and that 93 percent had been bought by international investors."The majority of the funds were invested with Madoff," Austrian newspaper Die Presse quoted bank board member Peter Scheithauer as saying in an online interview published late Tuesday. "It's not certain that all the money is gone," he added.A quarter of the private bank is owned by Unicredit's Bank Austria. The remaining 75 percent belong to chairwoman Sonja Kohn, who has served as advisor to Austria's economics and foreign affairs ministers and to Vienna's stock exchange

Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLP was retained by individuals and institutions that have lost hundreds of millions of dollars

Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLP was retained by individuals and institutions that have lost hundreds of millions of dollars due to investments made by Funds of Funds ("FOFs"), Hedge Funds, Investment Advisory Firms, International Banking Concerns, and Brokerage Houses through Madoff Investment Securities LLC and Bernard L. Madoff. It is now apparent that FOFs, Hedge Funds, Investment Advisory Firms, and Brokerage Houses invested billions of dollars with Madoff and these investments are now worthless. FOFs market themselves to institutional and retail investors based on their purported expertise in picking qualified managers and the due diligence they purportedly perform on the managers to whom they ultimately commit capital. It is becoming increasingly apparent that the FOFs that entrusted their clients' money with Madoff should have been aware of the numerous "red flags" that were raised by Madoff's activities. It is also now apparent that these FOFs failed to perform the necessary due diligence that they were being compensated to perform as investment managers and fiduciaries. Some of the FOFs that invested with Madoff include Tremont Capital, Farfield Greenwich Advisors, Fairfield Sentry, RMF Investment Management, Bramdean Alternatives, Union Bancaire Privee, Maxam Capital Management, EIM Group, and Rye Select Broad Market Fund. Wolf Haldenstein has extensive experience in the prosecution of securities class actions and derivative litigation in state and federal trial and appellate courts across the country. The firm has approximately 70 attorneys in various practice areas; and offices in Chicago, New York City, San Diego, and West Palm Beach. The reputation and expertise of this firm in shareholder and other class litigation has been repeatedly recognized by the courts, which have appointed it to major positions in complex securities multi-district and consolidated litigation.

Mets owner Fred Wilpon and partner Saul Katz may have lost as much as $300 million in fraudulent investment scheme

world's most powerful and wealthy investors were taken in by New York broker Bernard Madoff's alleged giant pyramid scheme, Bernard L. Madoff was arrested on a securities fraud charge on Dec 11, 2008. (AP) Victims of Madoff's alleged multi-billion-dollar fraud stretched from Tokyo to Europe and top investors in the United States. Madoff was arrested Thursday after allegedly confessing to employees that he had been running a so-called Ponzi scheme, or pyramid fraud, which had collapsed with losses exceeding 50 billion dollars. For decades Madoff was a pillar of Wall Street, cultivating an exclusive list of investment clients including big banks, hedge funds and individuals. Record-setting closer Francisco Rodriguez, who signed a three-year, $37-million free-agent contract with the New York Mets this week, may want to collect that in cash rather than check. That's because Mets owner Fred Wilpon and partner Saul Katz may have lost as much as $300 million in the fraudulent investment scheme allegedly run by Wall Street tycoon Bernard Madoff, according to CNBC.Wilpon's Sterling Equities, which owns the Mets, the minor league Brooklyn Cyclones and real estate in New York and Florida, confirmed to the New York Post that it had invested money with Madoff but wouldn't say how much. The company also declined to speculate on how the losses would affect the Mets.Madoff has been charged with duping investors of as much as $50 billion in what authorities allege was a long-running Ponzi scheme.

Financial institutions in Geneva invested SFr5 billion ($4.25 billion) in the fraudulent scheme of Wall Street trader, Bernard Madoff.

Reports say hedge funds and other financial institutions in Geneva invested SFr5 billion ($4.25 billion) in the fraudulent scheme of Wall Street trader, Bernard Madoff.The report in the Saturday edition of Le Temps newspaper followed Friday's revelation by Swiss wealth management bank, Bénédict Hentsch, that it had entrusted Madoff's investment company with SFr56 million of its clients' assets.However, the regulatory body, the Federal Banking Commission, said on Saturday it did not have any details as to the extent of the impact of the Wall Street scandal on Switzerland.
Madoff, a former Nasdaq stock market chairman and founder of an investment securities company bearing his name, was arrested on a securities fraud charge on Thursday.He is suspected of running a phoney investment business that lost at least $50 billion and amounted to nothing more than a "Ponzi scheme" - a pyramid-type swindle in which very high returns are promised to early investors."
The Wall Street Journal reports that also the Zurich based bank Neue Privat Bank is hit by the Madoff scandal:"Nomura and Neue Privat Bank, meanwhile, together marketed access to Fairfield Sentry Ltd., a fund overseen by Mr. Madoff and sold through Fairfield Greenwich. The shares offered by Neue Privat and Nomura were leveraged three times -- meaning $3 of borrowed money was added to every $1 of capital invested in order to magnify returns, greatly increasing the potential losses for those investors."

Bernard Madoff, fallout Investors scrambled to assess potential losses

Investors scrambled to assess potential losses from an alleged $50 billion fraud by Bernard Madoff, a day after the arrest of the prominent Wall Street trader.
Prosecutors and regulators accused the 70-year-old, who was chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market in the early 1990s, of masterminding a fraud of epic proportions through his investment advisory business, which managed at least one hedge fund.
Hundreds of people, investing with him through the firm's clients, entrusted Madoff with billions of dollars, industry experts said."Madoff's investors included captains of industry, corporations - some of which are publicly traded - that used Madoff almost as a high-yielding cash management account, endowments, universities, foundations and, importantly, many high-profile funds of funds," said Douglas Kass, who heads hedge fund Seabreeze Partners Management."It appears that at least $15 billion of wealth, much of which was concentrated in southern Florida and New York City, has gone to 'money heaven,'" he said.
Federal agents arrested Madoff at his apartment on Thursday after prosecutors said he told senior employees that his money management operations were "all just one big lie" and "basically, a giant Ponzi scheme."A Ponzi scheme is an illegal investment vehicle that pays off old investors with money from new ones, and is dependent on a constant stream of new investment. Because the invested capital is not earning a sufficient return on its own, such schemes eventually collapse under their own weight.Madoff is the founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, a market-making firm he launched in 1960. His separate investment advisory business had $17.1 billion of assets under management.About a dozen angry investors gathered on Friday in the lobby of the Lipstick Building in midtown Manhattan, where the market-making firm and advisory business are headquartered, demanding to know the fate of their money.One woman said that when she called the firm's offices on Thursday she was told it was "business as usual."Another investor groused, "Business as usual? Of course it's business as usual. We're getting screwed left and right."Police later evicted the small group from the building.Individual investors were feeling the squeeze elsewhere."I expect to get back zero," said Floridian Susan Leavitt, who invested through Madoff. "When he tells the feds he has $200 million to $300 million left out of billions, what can you expect?"Two law firms, Milberg LLP and Seeger Weiss LLP, said Friday they had been retained by "dozens of individual investors" in Madoff Securities.The two most prominent hedge funds that invested with Madoff were the $7.3 billion Fairfield Sentry Ltd, run by Walter Noel's Fairfield Greenwich Group, and the $2.8 billion Kingate Global Fund Ltd, run by Kingate Management Ltd.Fairfield Greenwich Group said it was trying to determine the extent of potential losses and vowed to pursue recovery of any lost assets. The firm said it had been working with Madoff for nearly 20 years.Fairfield Sentry and Kingate Global were among a small group of hedge funds to report positive returns for 2008; the average hedge fund was down 18 percent, according to data from Hedge Fund Research."People who came to us for portfolio construction were often already invested with Bernie Madoff. He had hundreds of clients," said Charles Gradante, who invests in hedge funds as a principal at Hennessee Group LLC. "Now his whole legacy is destroyed. He was God to people."Prior to Madoff's arrest, investors had wondered how he was able to generate annual returns in the low double digits in a variety of market environments. Many questioned how U.S. regulators were able to ignore numerous red flags with regard to Madoff's operations."Many of us questioned how that strategy could generate those kinds of returns so consistently," said Jon Najarian, an options trader who knows Madoff and is a co-founder of optionmonster.com.In May 2001, Barron's reported that option strategists for major investment banks said they could not understand how Madoff managed to generate the returns that he did."We weren't comfortable with Madoff," said Brad Alford, president at investment adviser Alpha Capital in Atlanta. "We didn't understand how his strategy could generate the kind of returns it did. We will walk away from things like that."U.S. stocks tumbled in early trading on Friday, with some investors citing the Madoff case as well as the failure of talks in Congress on a rescue for the U.S. auto industry. The market later rebounded, with the Dow Jones industrial average closing 0.75 percent higher for the day.
Investors overseas were reeling from the alleged fraud.Benedict Hentsch, a Swiss private bank, said it had 56 million Swiss francs ($47 million) of exposure to Madoff's investment advisory business.Italian bank UniCredit SpA's fund management unit, Pioneer Investments, has exposure through its Primeo Select hedge fund, two people familiar with the matter said.Bramdean Alternatives Ltd said almost 10 percent of its holdings were exposed to Madoff, sending shares in the UK asset manager crashing.CNBC Television reported that Sterling Equities, which owns the New York Mets baseball team, had accounts managed by Madoff.Madoff said "there is no innocent explanation" for his activities, and that he "paid investors with money that wasn't there," according to the federal complaint.Prosecutors also accused Madoff of wanting to distribute as much as $300 million to employees, family members and friends before turning himself in.Charged with one count of securities fraud, he faces up to 20 years in prison and a $5 million fine. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed separate civil charges.A hearing had been scheduled for Friday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on the SEC's request to grant powers to the court-appointed receiver to oversee the entire firm, as well as on the commission's request for a firmwide asset freeze.But the hearing was canceled after the matter was resolved, said a deputy for U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton. No other details were immediately available. The receiver, lawyer Lee Richards, had been appointed by the judge on Thursday to oversee assets and accounts of the firm held abroad.Madoff's lawyer, Dan Horwitz, said on Thursday: "We will fight to get through this unfortunate set of events." His client was released on $10 million bond.
Madoff is a member of Nasdaq OMX Group Inc's nominating committee. His firm has said it is a market-maker for about 350 Nasdaq stocks.
He is also chairman of London-based Madoff Securities International Ltd, whose chief executive, Stephen Raven, said the firm was "not in any way part of" the New York-based market-maker.All equity trades involving the market-making firm will be processed as usual, the Depository Trust Clearing Corp told Reuters on Friday

Tom Petters is now scheduled to go on trial in early February.

Tom Petters is now scheduled to go on trial in early February. Petters is facing charges that he masterminded a multi-billion dollar fraud scheme. Petters pleaded not guilty in a federal courtroom in St. Paul Tuesday. St. Paul, Minn. — A little over a year ago, Richard Feldman heard about what seemed to be a great money-making opportunity. It looked like it would consistently provide a 12 to 18 percent annual return. Feldman, a composer living in California, said he's now one of the investors facing a loss from Petters' alleged scheme. The investment opportunity involved financing the sale of surplus consumer electronics and other products. Investors would provide money to a broker who was a middle-man between manufacturers or other vendors and retailers, like Costco and Wal-Mart. It made sense to Feldman, at least then. "When they had excess merchandise or merchandise that had not sold or whatever, they would then use brokers to sell that merchandise," Feldman said. "We were financing that transaction." The profit apparently came from the markup on the sale and interest on the financing. The vendors and manufacturers weren't identified, but it seemed like such an enticing opportunity. At times, the investment was even closed too, apparently because there were too many people ready to put money into such a seemingly sure thing. "Frankly, I don't expect to recover anything."- Richard Feldman, a Petters investor. Feldman put in some serious money, via a Palm Beach firm that invested with Petters. He wouldn't say how much money.
"I was led to believe this was a very good investment and very safe because of the safeguards that had been put in place in terms of how the money was invested, with Petters, though I didn't know it was Petters at the time," Feldman said.
Like most investors, Feldman didn't take profits from the investment, he let them grow. He said that's what most investors did, happy to see their returns add up. Or so it seemed. "They let it ride for the most part," he said. "There were people who did redeem, and they were presumably paid by other investors in the typical Ponzi scheme." In a Ponzi scheme, a fraudulent operation promises high returns but merely pays off investors with money from other investors. Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant, pulled off a grand fraud like that in the 1920s. It was so notorious a plot that such frauds have since been known as Ponzi schemes. Ponzi schemes can have a long run, granted too many people don't ask for their money back. The federal indictment charges that Petters, through two of his companies, Petters Group Worldwide and Petters Co. Inc., defrauded investors out of $3.5 billion in a scheme that lasted more than 10 years. The feds charged that Petters and his co-conspirators told investors their money would be used to buy merchandise that would be resold to retailers at a profit. But, the feds say no merchandise existed and no sales were made. Instead, the money was used to pay off other investors, and bankroll Petters' extravagant lifestyle.

In hindsight, Feldman said there were lots of opportunities to detect something was amiss with this investment. Feldman is kicking himself, the firm that directed his money to Petters, auditors, insurance companies and others. There's lots of blame to go around.

"The type of sophisticated investors that invested in this should have done better due diligence," Feldman said. "And why wasn't this caught sooner? And all these questions come with hindsight. For example, the insurers should have had pictures of the merchandise, and none of that was provided. Why it wasn't, I don't know."
Feldman said he understood the merchandise was insured, or should have been. And a prudent insurer would have wanted evidence that it existed. Problem is, there was no merchandise and Feldman did not know that at the time.
Looking back, Feldman said it also doesn't make sense that companies like Costco would buy goods this way. Or, that the brokers allegedly involved would have to pay such high interest rates on the money they borrowed. Cheaper money should have been available elsewhere. Feldman expects there'll be a lot of investor lawsuits in the Petters case. But Feldman doubts there'll be much, if any, money for investors like him when the legal battles end. "Frankly, I don't expect to recover anything. I think there will be very little to recover at the end of the day," he said. Petters is scheduled to stand trial starting February 9, 2009. But his attorney, Jon Hopeman, argued the trial can't start that soon because he'll need much more time to prepare his defense of Petters. Petters maintains his innocence.

Elizabeth Monrad, the convicted ex- finance chief of General Reinsurance Corp. who faces possible life in prison

Elizabeth Monrad, the convicted ex- finance chief of General Reinsurance Corp. who faces possible life in prison for her role in a $597 million fraud, said she should have testified at her trial to proclaim her innocence. “I will regret it for the rest of my life,” said Monrad, 54, in an interview with Bloomberg News, her first about the case. “I’m coping. I wall off the normal part of my life from the legal nightmare. I’m still in disbelief. The trial’s outcome was a total shock.”
Monrad was convicted Feb. 15 with four other insurance executives of using a sham transaction in 2000 to deceive shareholders at American International Group Inc. None of the defendants testified. All face as much as life in prison when they are sentenced in federal court in Hartford, Connecticut. Monrad spoke about her defense strategy as one of her co- defendants nears the first sentencing. Prosecutors said former General Re Chief Executive Officer Ronald Ferguson joined Monrad and others who illegally helped AIG add $500 million in loss reserves, a key indicator of an insurer’s health. Ferguson will be sentenced Dec. 16. No date has been set for Monrad. Deciding whether to let an executive testify is one of the hardest choices for a defense lawyer, attorneys say. An executive seeking to explain her state of mind must weigh the peril of cross-examination by prosecutors. In earlier trials, jurors convicted former WorldCom Inc. Chairman Bernard Ebbers and ex- Enron Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Skilling after they testified. Ebbers is serving 25 years. Skilling got 24 years. ‘I’m Innocent’ “I know I’m innocent,” said Monrad, who said she will appeal. The other four defendants said they intend to appeal.