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Friday 26 March 2010

Deutsche Bank AG, JPMorgan Chase & Co., UBS AG and Hypo Real Estate Holding AG’s Depfa Bank Plc unit were charged with fraud

Deutsche Bank AG, JPMorgan Chase & Co., UBS AG and Hypo Real Estate Holding AG’s Depfa Bank Plc unit were charged with fraud linked to the sale of derivatives to the City of Milan.
Judge Simone Luerti scheduled the trial of the four firms, 11 bankers and two former city officials for May 6, Prosecutor Alfredo Robledo said after a hearing in Milan today. The banks allegedly misled the city on swaps that adjusted interest payments on 1.7 billion euros ($2.3 billion) of borrowings.
Prosecutors across Italy are probing banks as local and national government agencies face potential losses of 2.5 billion euros on derivatives, lawyers say. The Milan probe may also affect cases as far away as the U.S., where securities firms have faced charges for price-fixing and bid-rigging in the sale of derivatives to municipalities, though not for fraud, according to former regulator Christopher “Kit” Taylor.
“This case could have repercussions over here if the trial showed deliberate intent,” said Taylor, a former executive director of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, the national regulator of the municipal-bond market. “What happened in Europe was the continuation of a pattern in the U.S.”
UBS, JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank officials didn’t have an immediate comment. Officials at Depfa couldn’t immediately be reached.
Economic Advantage
Robledo alleges the London units of the four banks misled Milan on the economic advantage of a financing package that included the swaps and earned 101 million euros in hidden fees.
He also claims the banks violated U.K. securities rules by failing to inform Milan in writing that for the swap deal the city was a counterparty to the lenders rather than a customer. Banks abiding by the rules of the Financial Services Authority are required to shield customers from conflicts of interest and provide them with clear and fair information that isn’t misleading.
The prosecutor, who seized assets from the banks equal to their share of the alleged profit, is claiming JPMorgan charged about 45 million euros in commissions that were hidden from the municipality, while Deutsche Bank made about 25 million euros, Depfa Bank earned 21 million euros and UBS made 10 million euros, court documents show.
“The thesis brought forward by the prosecutor was particularly innovative and aggressive,” said Giampiero Biancolella, an attorney specializing in financial crime who isn’t involved in the case. “The indictments prove the allegations are legitimate, though the charges don’t yet prove the banks are guilty.”
Apulia Probe
In another Italian investigation, magistrates in the region of Apulia are probing Bank of America Corp. and last month requested the company be stopped from doing business with the country’s municipalities for two years amid allegations it misled the municipality on derivatives linked to 870 million euros of bonds. A unit of Dexia SA is also under investigation in the same case.
Separately, Nomura Holdings Inc. bankers are under investigation for alleged fraud relating to derivatives contracts sold to the Italian region of Liguria in 2004, people familiar with the case said last month.
Derivatives are unregulated financial instruments linked to stocks, bonds, loans, currencies and commodities, or related to specific events such as changes in interest rates or the weather.
The allegations have prompted Italian lawmakers to propose new rules restricting the use of derivatives among municipalities by boosting oversight and banning upfront payments. Italy’s Senate Finance Committee on March 11 unanimously approved a proposal on tighter rules that will be used by the finance ministry to shape regulation.
Through swaps, “banks found a way to sell something that is debt without making it look like debt,” said Taylor, who advises a law firm that has sued banks on behalf of residents of Jefferson County, Alabama, which was on the brink of bankruptcy after swaps backfired.

Christian Littlewood, a former banker at Dresdner Kleinwort and Shore Capital, was charged along with his wife on 14 counts of insider trading.

Christian Littlewood, a former banker at Dresdner Kleinwort and Shore Capital, was charged along with his wife on 14 counts of insider trading. The FSA is also attempting to extradite a 33-year old Singaporean man from Mayotte in the Comoros Islands in connection with Mr Littlewood's case.
Two weeks ago, former Cazenove partner Malcolm Calvert was sentenced to 21 months in jail after being found guilty on five counts of insider trading. Mr Calvert has appealed the conviction, with his lawyers describing his sentence as "excessive".
Margaret Cole, director of financial crime and enforcement at the FSA, has been leading the regulators efforts to secure more insider trading convictions.

Iraj Parvizi, 44, of Romford-based Aria Capital, was taken ill soon after being arrested.

Iraj Parvizi, 44, of Romford-based Aria Capital, was taken ill soon after being arrested. Officers from the FSA and Serious Organised Crime Agency have so far been unable to interview him in relation to their probe into an alleged insider trading ring, according to a source close to the situation.
The reason for Mr Parvizi's hospitalisation is unknown. He was one of six men arrested by the FSA and SOCA in series of raids of 16 addresses in and around London on Tuesday. A seventh man, Ben Anderson, a former stockbroker, was arrested on Wednesday on his return from the Caribbean.
Leading banks BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank have been drawn into the case, along with hedge fund Moore Capital, and boutique London broker Novum Securities. All the institutions have confirmed they are co-operating with the investigation.
Clive Roberts, head of sales trading at Exane, in which BNP Paribas owns a 50pc stake but has minority voting rights; Martyn Dodgson, a Deutsche Bank managing director who was part of the team assisting the UK Treasury in last year's bank bail-outs; Julian Rifat, a Moore Capital execution trader; and Graeme Shelley a Novum Securities trader, have all been identified in connection with the investigation and are understood to have already been questioned by the authorities.
Nearly 150 FSA staff were involved in Tuesday's arrests, which were supported by SOCA officers, in a move that has sent shockwaves throughout the City.
The arrests followed a more than two-year investigation into what has been described as a "sophisticated and long-running insider dealing ring".

Convicted TJX hacker Albert Gonzalez was sentenced to 20 years in prison

Convicted TJX hacker Albert Gonzalez was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Thursday for leading a gang of cyberthieves who stole more than 90 million credit and debit card numbers from TJX and other retailers.The sentence for the largest computer-crime case ever prosecuted is the lengthiest ever imposed in the United States for hacking or identity-theft. Gonzalez was also fined $25,000. Restitution, which will likely be in the tens of millions, was not decided Thursday.Clean-cut, wearing a beige jail uniform and wireframe glasses, the 28-year-old Gonzalez sat motionless at his chair during Thursday’s proceedings, his hands folded in front of him.Before the sentence was pronounced, Gonzalez told the court he deeply regrets his crimes, and is remorseful for having taken advantage of the personal relationships he’d forged. “Particularly one I had with a certain government agency … that gave me a second chance in life,” said the hacker, who had worked as a paid informant for the Secret Service. “I blame nobody but myself.”“I violated the sanctity of my parents’ home by using it to stash illegal proceeds,” said Gonzalez. He asked for a lower sentence “so I can one day prove to [my family] that I love them as much as they love me.”

The hacker’s voice cracked and his gaze drifted to the floor as he finished his statement. His father, mother and sister sat in the front row of the gallery; Gonzalez’s father’s eyes reddened and he held a tissue to his face.
Gonzalez, who once dubbed his criminal enterprise “Operation Get Rich or Die Tryin’,” had argued in court filings that his only motive was technical curiosity and an obsession with conquering computer networks. But chat logs the government obtained showed Gonzalez confiding in one of his accomplices that his goal was to earn $15 million from his schemes, buy a yacht and then retire.

The hacker had faced a sentence of between 15 and 25 years for the TJX string of intrusions. The government sought the maximum, while Gonzalez sought the minimum, on grounds that he suffered from Asperger’s disorder and computer addiction, and that he cooperated with the government extensively against his U.S. co-conspirators and two Eastern European hackers (known only as “Grigg” and “Annex”). Gonzalez even provided the government with information about breaches that had not yet been detected.


Albert Gonzalez at the 2001 DefCon hackers' convention in Las Vegas
A psychiatrist who examined Gonzalez for prosecutors, however, found no evidence of Asperger’s disorder or computer addiction. At Thursday’s hearing, assistant U.S. attorney Stephen Heymann urged the court to hand down a 25-year sentence that would strongly deter future Albert Gonzalezes from a life of cybercrime.

Gonzalez “conned law enforcement once before with the idea that he had seen the error of his ways,” said Heymann. “What matters is that teenagers and young people not look up to him.”

Defense attorney Martin Weinberg argued the minimum 15-year sentence would be sufficient to set an example. “That’s an enormous, devastating sentence … and a compelling and clear message to anyone looking at this case that they would suffer what he has suffered.”

In splitting the difference, U.S. District Judge Patti Saris credited Gonzalez for his apparent remorse, and his bond with his family. But Saris said she was disturbed by the fact that he committed his crimes while working for the government. She explained the low $25,000 fine by predicting her restitution order, to be set at a future hearing, will be sizable.

“You’re never possibly going to be paying back all the restitution that’s going to be ordered,” said Saris.


The government claimed in its sentencing memo that companies, banks and insurers lost close to $200 million, and that Gonzalez’s credit and debit card thefts “victimized a group of people whose population exceeded that of many major cities and some states.”

Gonzalez’s crimes were committed mostly between 2005 and 2008 while he was drawing a $75,000 salary working for the U.S. Secret Service as a paid undercover informant.

The sentence is for two criminal cases that were consolidated and that concern hacks into TJX, Office Max, Dave & Busters restaurant chain, Barnes & Noble and a string of other companies.The drama in the case continued up to the last minute when Gonzalez attempted last week to contest the monetary losses attributed to the TJX intrusion. The defense served the company with a subpoena seeking documentation to back its assessment that it suffered $171.5 million loss, a figure that the judge will take into consideration when she decides what restitution Gonzalez will have to pay.Gonzalez’s attorney argued in court documents that some of the losses were the result of TJX’s own negligence. Gonzalez should not be responsible, for example, for the cost of security upgrades the company implemented after the breach — upgrades that, had they been in place before, might have prevented the intrusion.

According to documents filed in a class-action lawsuit against the retailer, TJX had failed to notice 80 gigabytes of data being siphoned from its network over seven months beginning in July 2005. A 2004 audit of the company’s network had also found “high-level deficiencies” in its security practices.On Wednesday, TJX sought to quash the 11th-hour subpoena, calling it a “diversion and a sideshow.” In a motion and memo filed with the court, the company took issue with Gonzalez’s characterization of its security. (.pdf)
“TJX firmly denies that it was negligent, but it is not on trial in this proceeding,” the company wrote. “Defendant’s responsibility for the loss suffered by TJX is not mitigated by accusations against TJX.”The company pointed out that at least 11.2 million payment cards were stolen from the TJX intrusion alone. If the government calculated the potential loss at $500 per card (per federal guidelines) the impact of the intrusion would exceed $400 million.
The string of hacks began in 2005 when Gonzalez and accomplices conducted war-driving expeditions along a Miami highway and other locations in search of poorly protected wireless networks, and found easy access into several retailer networks.
Once inside a local TJX outlet’s network, the hackers forged their way upstream to its corporate network in Massachusetts. Gonzalez obtained a packet sniffer from best friend Stephen Watt, which he and accomplices installed on the TJX network to siphon transaction data in real time, including the magstripe data on the credit and debit cards.The stolen magstripe data was routed to servers Gonzalez leased in Latvia and Ukraine, and ultimately passed to master Ukrainian card seller Maksym “Maksik” Yastremskiy, who peddled them to other carders in the underground, accepting payment through web currencies, such as E-Gold and Web Money, or direct bank-account deposits to Eastern Europe. Maksik’s customers programmed the magstripe data onto counterfeit credit cards.Yastremskiy, whom authorities say earned $11 million from card sales, was captured in Turkey in 2007 while on vacation and was sentenced in 2009 to 30 years in prison by a Turkish court. U.S. authorities seized a treasure trove of data from his computer that helped build a case against Gonzalez.
Some of Gonzalez’s breaches were the first known intrusions to involve the decryption of PIN codes, the holy grail of bank card security. According to court documents, Gonzalez sought out accomplices in Eastern Europe to crack the PINs. Gonzalez’s associates programmed blank cards with debit card magstripe data and used them with the stolen PINs to siphon money from ATMs.
Authorities found 16.3 million stolen card numbers on Gonzalez’s leased Latvian server. Another 27.5 million stolen numbers were found on the server in Ukraine.
But this wasn’t the first of Gonzalez’s carding crimes. His initial run-in with law enforcement began in 2003, when he was arrested for making fraudulent ATM withdrawals in New York. Under the nickname “Cumbajohnny,” he was at the time a top administrator on a carding site called Shadowcrew, where crooks trafficked in stolen bank card data and other goods.

When the Secret Service discovered his central role in the carding community, the agency cut him loose and put him to work undercover on the site, where he lured his associates into using a supposedly secure VPN for their internet traffic, which was actually wiretapped by the Secret Service’s New Jersey office.The undercover sting operation, known as “Operation Firewall,” ended in October 2004 with coordinated raids that resulted in the arrest of 28 members of the site, which agents subsequently closed.At that point, Gonzalez, still on pre-trial release from his 2003 arrest, moved back to Miami. He continued to help the Secret Service, though he was now on salary with the agency earning $75,000 a year.Simultaneous to his government crime-fighting work, however, he adopted a new nick, “segvec,” and resumed his criminal activity under the noses of the agents who were paying him, ramping up his activities to a level that far exceeded any crimes he’d committed before his arrest, or any staged by the Operation Firewall defendants.

Authorities, who had no idea the “segvec” they were furiously chasing for more than a year was their salaried informant, finally figured it out and nabbed Gonzalez in May 2008. A few months later, during interrogations, he directed authorities to a stash of $1.1 million in cash that he’d buried in a barrel in the backyard of his parents’ home.
In addition to this cash, the government has seized Gonzalez’s Miami condo, a 2006 BMW, a Glock 27 firearm, a currency counter, a Tiffany diamond ring given to his former fiance and three Rolex watches that Gonzalez gave to his father and others as gifts.
Gonzalez’s sentencing this week follows two others related to the TJX hacks. Last December, Stephen Watt, a former coder for Morgan Stanley, was sentenced to two years in prison for providing the sniffer that Gonzalez used in the TJX hack. Watt was also ordered to pay restitution to TJX, jointly with other accomplices, in the amount of $171.5 million.Earlier this month, Humza Zaman, a former network security manager at Barclays Bank, was sentenced to 46 months in prison and fined $75,000 for serving as a money courier for Gonzalez. He was charged with laundering between $600,000 and $800,000 for Gonzalez.Gonzalez’s sentence is among the stiffest imposed for a financial crime, and the longest U.S. prison term in history for hacking. It beats out a sentence recently imposed on hacker Max Ray Vision, who received 13 years in prison for similar crimes.
On Friday, Gonzalez will be sentenced in another case involving breaches at Heartland Payment Systems — a New Jersey card-processing company — Hannaford Brothers supermarket chain, 7-Eleven and two national retailers that are unidentified in court documents. These hacks involved more than 130 million debit and credit card numbers. He faces a likely sentence of between 17 and 25 years in that case.
Under the plea agreements, the sentences will be served concurrently.

Three executives of the British unit of Alstom, the French transport and power equipment conglomerate, have been questioned

Three executives of the British unit of Alstom, the French transport and power equipment conglomerate, have been questioned on suspicion of bribery, corruption, money laundering and false accounting, British officials said Wednesday.
The Serious Fraud Office, which investigates financial crime, said its inquiry centered on suspected payment of bribes by companies within the Alstom group in Britain.The three men were released after questioning without being charged, Alstom said. A company spokesperson, Stéphane Farhi, told The Associated Press that the men were Stephen Burgin, president of the British unit; Robert Purcell, finance director, and Altan Cledwyn-Davies, legal director.The warrants were executed at the request of the Swiss federal Justice Ministry, Alstom said. The company has been under investigation in Switzerland for several years in a case related to allegations that it offered bribes to gain customers in various locations.“It is suspected that bribes have been paid in order to win contracts overseas, and that this has involved associated money laundering and other offenses,” the fraud office said.

Alstom said it was cooperating with the British authorities.

Jeannette Balmer, a spokeswoman for Swiss federal prosecutors, said the fraud office was undertaking its own investigation in Britain and was also “executing a request from Switzerland for mutual assistance.” She said the Swiss criminal inquiry was continuing but would not comment further.The French authorities opened an inquiry into Alstom in 2007 after a tip from the Swiss. A spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutors’ office said that investigation was open, but declined comment.
Alstom operates in 70 countries. It has annual sales of €18.7 billion, or $25 billion, and employs more than 80,000 people. It supplies rolling stock, transport infrastructure and signaling and maintenance for railroads. The company delivered the first high-speed train, or T.G.V., in France in 1978.
The company is also a leader in producing power plants for electricity production including in the nuclear sector and air quality control systems. Its rivals include General Electric, Siemens and ABB. The main shareholder in Alstom is the French conglomerate Bouygues, which bought a 21 percent stake from the state in 2006 and now owns almost 30 percent of the shares.

Omar Bin Sulaiman, the former governor of the Dubai International Financial Centre, is being questioned by state security as part of an investigation


Omar Bin Sulaiman, the former governor of the Dubai International Financial Centre, is being questioned by state security as part of an investigation into alleged financial crime.

The Zawya Dow Jones newswire quoted sources familiar with the situation as saying that no charges have yet been laid against Bin Sulaiman. Nor has the investigation yet been referred to prosecutors.

The DIFC and public prosecution officials refused to comment, the newswire said.

Benjamin Joseph Chaney and Kara Leigh Brown. Chaney was employed by the unidentified Davis family business as chief financial officer

Benjamin Joseph Chaney and Kara Leigh Brown. Chaney was employed by the unidentified Davis family business as chief financial officer, and used his position to write checks and use the company credit card for a multitude of personal expenses related to the couple's home, vehicles and entertainment, according to chief deputy district attorney Jonathan Raven.
The indictment of the couple follows two years of litigation and investigation in the Yolo County courts, according to Raven.
Yolo County Judge Janet Gaard, who presides over the Grand Jury, issued warrants for the couple, who were arrested last weekend. Gaard set bail according to the court's bail schedule. However, the judge handling Monday's arraignment of the couple released them without requiring them to post any bail over the objection of the District Attorney's Office.
A trial-setting conference has been scheduled for April 9, before Judge Stephen Mock.

Sholam Weiss has time on his hands — 845 years, a record for white-collar crime.

Convicted life-insurance swindler Sholam Weiss has time on his hands — 845 years, a record for white-collar crime. Today in Atlanta his attorney appealed for his client to be resentenced in hopes of shaving off a little time — about 800 years worth.
The Associated Press tells the tale of the Scranton, Pa., man, who 10 years ago in Florida was convicted of stealing $125 million from customers of National Heritage Life Insurance Co. The Orlando firm collapsed in 1994 and nearly all 25,000 policy holders lost their life savings. The federal judge said Weiss should be put away forever and handed down the record sentence. (Bernard Maddoff got only 150 years for his multibillion Ponzi scheme.)But before he was found guilty, Weiss, who weighed 250 pounds and wore a beard, went on the lam for eight months until being arrested in October 2000 in Austria. His attorney argued today in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals that the Justice Department reneged on a promise to resentence Weiss in exchange for Austria agreeing to extradite him. The U.S. government said no such deal was ever promised.Expect a ruling in the months ahead. Meantime, Weiss sits in the federal penitentiary near Scranton.

Credit Suisse (CSGN.VX) said it is restricting bankers' travel to Germany

Credit Suisse (CSGN.VX) said it is restricting bankers' travel to Germany after authorities there said they had launched 1,100 tax evasion probes against the bank's clients and were investigating staff on suspicion of aiding evasion.The probe into Switzerland's second-largest bank by assets relates to a CD with client data bought by the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
"We already have restrictions on travel in place and now these are being applied very strictly in the case of Germany," a Credit Suisse spokesman told Reuters on Sunday.
"As far as I know we have had no contact with the German authorities and cannot comment further," he said.
Credit Suisse, which operates globally in investment banking and wealth management, gained market share at home in the crisis as larger domestic competitor UBS (UBSN.VX) (UBS.N) struggled with damage to its reputation caused by a bitter U.S. tax case and a state bailout.

We will not allow Greece to go bankrupt

Athens. We will not allow Greece to go bankrupt, said Greek Prime Minster (PM) George Papandreou, as quoted by the Greek Naftemporiki newspaper online edition. Papandreou said at a meeting of the national council of the socialist party PASOK in Thessaloniki the size of the challenge turns everyone in main characters.
“I now we will reply to the challenge like a party, government and a country,” Prime Miniter said.

warnings came as Bradford & Bingley revealed it has set aside £388m to cover losses incurred due to fraud.

warnings came as Bradford & Bingley revealed it has set aside £388m to cover losses incurred due to fraud.More than 5,000 identity fraud victims sought help from the credit search firm in 2009 - a rise of around 20% compared with 2008.First-party fraud, where individuals manipulate their own information, rose from 28% of all fraud cases in the first three quarters of 2009 to 46% in Q4.Nationalised lender B&B mentioned its fraud buffer in its annual results report on Friday.It carried out a review of its mortgage book last year to search for suspected instances of mortgage fraud and professional negligence.

Anglo Irish Bank Sean FitzPatrick questioning amid allegations of financial fraud

Sean FitzPatrick must have expected that someone would eventually come knocking on his door. What the former banker did not know, however, was exactly when it was going to happen, or who would be doing the knocking.As it transpired, the answer came last Thursday when several members of the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation arrived at his home at 6.30am. Sixteen months after he resigned as chairman of Anglo Irish Bank, the bureau finally decided to haul FitzPatrick in for questioning amid allegations of financial fraud. However, the call could have come from any number of interested parties, all of whom have the smooth-talking former banker firmly on their radar. The fraud squad might have fired the first shot last week, but a host of other bodies and investigators are currently loading their guns as well.Officials and detectives from the Office of the Director Corporate Enforcement (ODCE) are still trawling through thousands of pages of financial documents, computer records and interview transcripts, as part of a wide-ranging investigation into Anglo.The investigation is complex, fragmented and diverse, but FitzPatrick has emerged as the key player in the narrative, the man at the centre of the financial maze. An investigator from the Chartered Accountants Regulatory Board, Sean Purcell, is also on the prowl, looking into breaches of duty by its members, including FitzPatrick, who is a certified chartered accountant.Meanwhile, the Financial Regulator, under new management, is also conducting its own probe into the financial and reporting machinations in Anglo prior to its nationalisation by the Irish government last year. And, of course, there is the bank itself, also under new management. Anglo is currently pursuing its former chairman and chief executive through the Irish courts over loans of some €70 million that he owes the bank.As it prepares to unveil the largest loss in Irish corporate history, understood to be in the order of €12 billion, the lender is not just going after FitzPatrick,but also his investments, his family home and even his pension. Last week’s action by the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation was the criminal aspect of the various probes. He was arrested under Section 10 of the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act 2001, the first high-profile figure to be arrested under the legislation.

The act deals with false accounting, and carries penalties ranging from fines to ten years’ imprisonment. Having been detained for 31 hours, FitzPatrick was released without charge just after lunchtime last Friday. Gardai said a file was bring prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), but the focus of the questioning has not been revealed.

However, it is understood that much of the questioning related to annual ‘warehousing’ of FitzPatrick’s loans with the Irish Nationwide Building Society. From 2001, FitzPatrick and Anglo shifted his personal loans from the bank’s books to Irish Nationwide, thereby ensuring that they never appeared on its year-end accounts. FitzPatrick maintained that the strategy was legal; the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation is not convinced.

Like the ODCE, the fraud squad is also looking into other issues surrounding Anglo. Officials are examining documents concerning the movement of €7.45 billion in deposits between Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Life & Permanent in 2008, a move which artificially inflated Anglo’s balance sheet. Also being examined is the €451 million in loans that Anglo advanced to ‘‘ten long-standing clients’’ to purchase a 10 per cent stake in the bank.The ODCE is investigating whether the secretive deal represented an illegal share support scheme, designed to boost

Anglo shares on the stock market. In such cases it is standard practice that institutions on both sides of the deal will be asked questions. As such, sources said it was probable that Irish Life and Permanent and Irish Nationwide will be asked to furnish answers. Securing a fraud conviction against FitzPatrick under Irish criminal law would be a tricky business, however. There are few precedents for such convictions, and the standard of proof, like in other areas of criminal law, is extremely high.

The bureau is working with the Financial Regulator on the case, and the two probes are reportedly running in parallel. It is expected that FitzPatrick will be questioned again before a file is sent to the DPP, who will then decide on the basis of the evidence accumulated whether to press charges. Separate to all this, however, is the ongoing work of the ODCE, the state body established in 2001 to police corporate crime and encourage compliance across all sectors of Irish business. While the fraud squad is dealing with criminal law, the ODCE is investigating whether any breaches of company law occurred in Anglo. The director, Paul Appleby, has already conducted a dawn raid on Anglo, and has devoted one-third of the staff of his office to the Anglo investigation.It has not yet questioned FitzPatrick. However, a number of detectives attached to the office can bring in the banker for questioning when, or if, they decide. The ODCE was not commenting last week, other than to say that the investigation was ongoing. The government has certainly been keen to back up the ODCE’s investigation. Staff numbers have been increased, while new legislation is to be introduced to give the state’s corporate enforcer access to previously confidential company records.
Appleby clearly believes he is following a trail. In a leaked letter to the joint Oireachtas finance committee last year, he said it was his opinion that ‘‘circumstances suggesting prejudice, misconduct and/ or illegality are present with respect to the company’s affairs’’. Despite sustained political pressure, Appleby has not been rushed in his investigation.However, there were suggestions last week that the move by the Fraud Squad might spur the office into quicker action. Not that FitzPatrick will mind the wait. With the authorities circling, he is attempting to restructure his finances in an effort to repay money to his lenders. In total, he has debts of €90 million and assets of more than €30 million, leaving a deficit of €60 million.FitzPatrick might have relinquished his many directorships, but the one-time blueblood of the boom has never been busier - for all the wrong reasons.

death of former CSK president Martin G. Fraser and the government's intent to dismiss a 31-count indictment handed up last year.

death of former CSK president Martin G. Fraser and the government's intent to dismiss a 31-count indictment handed up last year.Fraser, 55, collapsed and died while visiting a Las Vegas hotel in January with his wife, his lawyer said on Thursday. The Clark County coroner's office said an autopsy showed he died of natural causes, citing cardiovascular disease exacerbated by obesity and diabetes.Fraser, of Glendale, Ariz., and former CSK chief financial officer Don W. Watson, of Gilbert, Ariz., were accused of covering up uncollectable debts at the Phoenix-based parent company of parts retailers Kragen, Checker Auto, Schuck's Auto Supply and Murray's Discount Auto Stores from 2001 to 2006.CSK was bought by Springfield, Mo.-based O'Reilly Automotive Inc. in 2008.A civil lawsuit filed last year by the Securities and Exchange Commission also alleged that Fraser and Watson, along with former CSK controller Edward O'Brien and supervisor Gary Opper, committed accounting fraud, leading to misstated income reports being filed.Fraser's lawyer, Los Angeles-based attorney David Schindler, said his client was innocent.
"We were very confident that he was going to be exonerated," Schindler said, calling the death "a tragedy for his family."The criminal indictments charged Fraser and Watson with conspiracy, securities fraud, mail fraud, false filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, false books and records, and false statements to the company's auditor. Watson was charged separately with falsely certifying financial reports.They allegedly conspired to misstate company income primarily by concealing tens of millions of dollars it couldn't collect that should have been written off. That resulted in incorrect financial reports in fiscal years 2002, 2003 and 2004 that overstated income by about $53 million, according to the government.

NZ$17.8 million was stolen by the banker Stephen Gerard Versalko, 52.

Cash drained from the customer’s investments was openly used for showcasing a luxurious lifestyle of having property, cash and prostitutes by an investment adviser at ASB. Almost NZ$17.8 million was stolen by the banker Stephen Gerard Versalko, 52. For this offence, the accused have been jailed for six years.This has come out to be the first and the biggest single employee case in New Zealand. This case was unveiled after one of the clients of Versalko observed a documentary with behavioral similarities on Bernard Madoff, an US impostor.People who were clawed under the defrauded scheme of Versalko's, largely included elderly females who resided away from New Zealand. The investors were assured that their money will get them high-return as the investments were guaranteed by Government.It is now known that during the year 2000 and 2009, Versalko spent NZ $4 million on extravagance properties, NZ$3.3 million on prostitutes and NZ$300,000 on wine. He also spent the money for buying boats and cars.This case, reported by media has brought into light that during this period of time, a prostitute was offered NZ $2.5 million which she used in erecting a good amount of property that will face a legal action for getting the property back.Addressing the bank authority, two days before the sentencing, he wrote, “The years ahead are going to be very difficult, however I want to make amends even if only in a small way”.

Authorities served a search warrant at the Rancho Cucamonga home of Jodi Lee Nazir

Authorities served a search warrant at the Rancho Cucamonga home of Jodi Lee Nazir, 40, on Tuesday morning around 7 a.m., said Vance Welch, prosecutor with the San Bernardino County District Attorney's Real Estate Fraud Unit.Three people, including Nazir's son, were in the house at the time, Welch said.Welch has been in touch with Nazir's attorney, who may make arrangements for Nazir to turn herself in."She's looking at around 12 to 13 years (in prison) including charges and enhancements," Welch said.Since Tuesday, several tips have been called in to his office, Welch said.
"We've had numerous calls saying she's all over the place," Welch said."The number of people she has victimized has grown" since Tuesday, said Welch.The case against Nazir has been building since 2007 when she was first arrested, Welch said.The District Attorney's Office has filed six counts of grand theft and embezzlement against Nazir.
One count of the criminal complaint alleges that Nazir fraudulently obtained cash from a trust account for her personal use. She was able to obtain the cash using her position as a real estate agent with the Inland Empire Real Estate Solutions Trust Co.The criminal complaint also alleges grand theft in which Nazir "took,damaged and destroyed property exceeding $200,000."

Garrett Vilander Glover, 22, of Country Club Hills, Ill., faces three charges, all five-year felonies, including identity theft

Garrett Vilander Glover, 22, of Country Club Hills, Ill., faces three charges, all five-year felonies, including identity theft, according to Roseville police. He was being held at the Macomb County Jail on Saturday in lieu of $25,000 bail.
Three other Chicago-area men arrested with Glover on Friday morning were released Saturday after the case was reviewed by the Macomb County Prosecutor's Office, police said.According to the statement, fraudulent checks and credit or debit cards were used at local businesses and banks.Police did not say how much money has been lost to the fraud ring.

indictment accuses computer programmers Jerome O'Hara and George Perez of conspiracy, falsifying records of a broker dealer and falsifying records

Two former employees accused of helping fraudulent Wall Street financier Bernard Madoff programme an old computer to generate false records have been indicted.indictment accuses computer programmers Jerome O'Hara and George Perez of conspiracy, falsifying records of a broker dealer and falsifying records of an investment adviser.
The men originally were charged in a criminal complaint before the case was presented to a federal grand jury, which returned the indictment.O'Hara and Perez each remain free on $1 million bail. Defense lawyers say the men will plead not guilty.
The 71-year-old Madoff is serving a 150-year sentence after admitting his multi-decade pyramid scheme cost thousands of investors billions of dollars.

Sunday 7 March 2010

international financial crime watchdog has named and shamed countries that are failing to stop dirty money entering the financial system

international financial crime watchdog has named and shamed countries that are failing to stop dirty money entering the financial system, a move welcomed by Global Witness. However, conspicuously absent are major financial centres and secrecy jurisdictions, many of which also have serious weaknesses in their anti-money laundering regulations.FATF has named 8 countries as not having sufficient money laundering regulations in place: Iran, Angola, North Korea, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, São Tomé and Príncipe. The FATF criticised the following 20 countries for deficiencies in their anti-money laundering regime, while recognising that they had high level political commitment to improve: Antigua and Barbuda, Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Greece, Indonesia, Kenya, Morocco, Myanmar, Nepal, Nigeria, Paraguay, Qatar, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Trinidad and Tobago, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, and Yemen. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the intergovernmental group that sets the global anti-money laundering standard, has issued a list of countries which are failing to do enough to crack down on financial crime. The 28 countries include Iran, Greece and Turkey.

“This list is a welcome move by the FATF and will put significant pressure on the named countries to take money laundering seriously,” said Anthea Lawson, a campaigner with Global Witness. “However, the rich countries at the heart of the FATF need to get their own house in order and ensure that they too are meeting its standards”.

The task force has reverted to type by focusing mostly on poorer countries, while ignoring the substantial loopholes in the anti-money laundering systems of many rich jurisdictions. No countries have fully met the FATF standard, not even the United States, which has led the global campaign against dirty money. Global Witness has exposed how banks, including Barclays, Citibank, HSBC, and Bank of America, have been able to do business with corrupt regimes, facilitating corruption and denying some of the world's poorest people a way out of poverty. A recent report by a U.S. Senate committee detailed how foreign officials and their family members exploited holes in the anti-money laundering framework to bring millions of illicit dollars into the U.S. The list is based on the latest round of peer reviews carried by the FATF and its regional bodies. The reviews measured whether countries had laws on the books, rather than whether those laws are actually being implemented and enforced effectively. This should be the next stage of the FATF’s reviewing and blacklisting process.

global fraud allegedly run by jailed financier R. Allen Stanford filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Caribbean regulators

global fraud allegedly run by jailed financier R. Allen Stanford filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Caribbean regulators, five regional financial institutions and the government of Antigua and Barbuda.
The class-action suit seeks compensation for the "unlawful seizure" of the Bank of Antigua, a Stanford affiliate, Attorney Peter D. Morgenstern said.
The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, or ECCB, took over the Bank of Antigua in February 2009 in the wake of the U.S. fraud probe of the Texas tycoon's vast financial empire and redistributed its equity ownership.
But the complaint alleges the victims are entitled to the value of the Bank of Antigua when it was seized to provide some compensation to the roughly 28,000 investors from across the globe who allege they lost their life savings to the flamboyant financier.
"Instead of acting as a legitimate central bank, the ECCB became a partner in crime with the government of Antigua and Barbuda when it seized the bank," Morgenstern said in a statement. "The Bank of Antigua was, and remains, enormously valuable. All of that value rightfully belongs to Mr. Stanford's victims."
According to the suit filed in U.S. District Court in Dallas, the Bank of Antigua's value included loan receivables from the government of Antigua worth tens of millions of dollars, at least.
Phone calls made to several Antiguan government officials went unanswered Tuesday. Kennedy Byron, a director of bank supervision for the ECCB, declined to comment.
The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank is the monetary authority for a group of eight island economies, and it explained its intervention at the time as an effort to contain damage to the local economy.
Stanford provided loans to the government of Antigua and was the country's largest private employer, with businesses that included a development company, cricket stadium, newspaper, an airline and two restaurants.
But Angela Shaw, a leader of the advocacy group Stanford Victims Coalition whose family invested $4.5 million in Stanford certificates of deposit, said foreign investors in Stanford's CDs were abandoned in the rush to protect the economy of Antigua, an island of some 80,000 people.
"How can they say they need to protect Antigua when it has come at the cost of foreign citizens from around the world, when it was purchased with stolen money?" Shaw alleged during a phone interview from Dallas.
Stanford and other executives of the now-defunct Houston-based Stanford Financial Group are accused of orchestrating a huge Ponzi scheme by advising clients to invest more than $7 billion in certificates of deposit from the Stanford International Bank on Antigua. Investors from 113 countries were promised huge returns and assured that their investments were safe.
But U.S. authorities say Stanford, a once prominent figure in the Caribbean, and the executives fabricated the bank's balance sheets, bribed Antiguan regulators and misused investors' money to pay for his lavish lifestyle.
The lawsuit says investors are entitled to compensation for the value of the Bank of Antigua when it was seized, and that equity ownership of the bank was distributed by the central bank to Antigua itself and five bank defendants for little or no compensation.
It says the financial institutions that took ownership of the Bank of Antigua are Antigua Commercial Bank, St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla National Bank Ltd., Eastern Caribbean Financial Holdings Company Ltd., National Commercial Bank (SVG) Ltd., and National Bank of Dominica Ltd.
Stanford's financial empire was placed in the hands of a court-appointed attorney last year when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Stanford. The SEC accuses him of skimming more than $1 billion.
Stanford and the three executives pleaded not guilty to charges they ran a Ponzi scheme. Another former executive, James M. Davis, pleaded guilty and is cooperating with prosecutors.
The court-appointed receiver tracking down investors' lost money has said he hopes to gain control of more than $1.5 billion that would be returned to them. But an attorney representing the investors has said that goal may be unrealistic and victims should prepare to recover as little as 2 cents on the dollar.

50 people were arrested on Friday (February 19th) as part of a large-scale operation against financial crime and money laundering

50 people were arrested on Friday (February 19th) as part of a large-scale operation against financial crime and money laundering, Interior Minister Ivica Dacic announced. The operation was carried out in Valjevo, Novi Sad, Belgrade, Sabac, Sremska Mitrovica, Cacak and Sombor in co-operation with tax police and the chief prosecutor. Seven more people are being sought

Terri L. LaRiccia, who was a bookkeeper and accountant at the PAST Foundation on Kenny Road, is suspected of committing payroll fraud


Terri L. LaRiccia, who was a bookkeeper and accountant at the PAST Foundation on Kenny Road, is suspected of committing payroll fraud to take most of the money. Investigators also think she used the foundation's credit cards to pay her personal cell-phone bills and buy a used car. The theft occurred over at least nine months in 2009 but wasn't discovered until late last month.LaRiccia was fired Feb. 15, days after police were called to investigate."We are just devastated by it. As a small nonprofit, we're the classic target for this kind of bad behavior," said Annalies Corbin, PAST Foundation founder and executive director. "It's always hard in a small organization to find out an employee you trusted was untrustworthy."
Corbin said regular financial updates to foundation officials had been falsified to hide the theft.PAST shares a building with Metro Early College High School on the Ohio State University campus. Its anthropologists work with K-12 schools, and the organization has helped to design and teach units at Metro and Linden-McKinley STEM School, which is the Columbus district's science, technology, engineering and math-focused high school.Corbin discovered 11 fraudulent purchases on foundation credit and debit cards. Ten of those were withdrawals at automated-teller machines in the Grand Victoria Casino in Rising Sun, Ind., totaling nearly $3,000.The casino has video footage of LaRiccia using the ATM, according to documents police filed in Franklin County Municipal Court seeking a warrant to search her house.
Another $1,000 credit-card purchase was made at the Ricart Used Car Factory; shortly after that use, Corbin told police she saw the bookkeeper driving a different car.
LaRiccia would not comment for this story. She has not been charged with a crime.
She worked part time and did not have benefits, but police records say LaRiccia paid herself even when she was out sick. She had worked with PAST since 2008.
Corbin said she could not give details on other ways LaRiccia siphoned money using payroll. She said public money, grant money or money the nonprofit received through contracts wasn't involved; the stolen money came from an operational rainy-day fund.
Because the foundation has office space on campus, Ohio State University police are investigating."Like any other financial crime case, you have to build the investigation. You'll look at records, you'll conduct interviews, prepare investigative material. These do not move very quickly," said Police Chief Paul Denton.The foundation is changing its payroll operation to make sure this doesn't happen again, Corbin said.

four cases share the common thread of "honest services" fraud

four cases share the common thread of "honest services" fraud, a broad term that encompasses bribery and conflict-of-interest cases and one that raises questions about the scope of its definition. The Supreme Court will begin reviewing the constitutionality of the law beginning with the oral arguments of Skilling v. U.S. next week.The relevant law, U.S. Code title 18, section 1346 reads, "For the purposes of this chapter, the term 'scheme or artifice to defraud' includes a scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services."The U.S. Attorney's Office is contending Thompson, Coenen and Denmon defrauded by acting in their own interests instead of the public's when they entered into a land deal at Poverty Point Reservoir. Thompson was the reservoir's district executive director, Denmon was lake project engineer and Coenen represented the district as its attorney.A federal grand jury in Shreveport indicted Thompson and the other two on June 26, 2008, for conspiring to secretly purchase land along what would become Poverty Point Reservoir and selling it at substantial profit.Alexandria defense attorney Mike Small, who is representing Coenen in the case, said all parties, including the U.S. Attorney's Office, agreed to put off the trial until the Supreme Court rules on the cases this year."If these cases are decided the way we hope, it will be declared unconstitutional," Small said.Small said in that event, the alleged violation would not rise beyond state ethics conduct.In the case of Skilling v. U.S. — which Small said bears on the Coenen case, "on all fours," — Jeff Skilling, the former CEO of Enron, has appealed his conviction by questioning whether the government has to prove the defendant meant to enrich himself at the expense of his employer and whether the law is too vague. Skilling was convicted of conspiracy and fraud following the implosion of his Fortune 500 energy company.

owner of the car that kwaito star Mandoza crashed a week ago was arrested for his alleged involvement in an asset fraud syndicate

owner of the car that kwaito star Mandoza crashed a week ago was arrested for his alleged involvement in an asset fraud syndicate, the Hawks said on Monday.Musa Zondi, spokesperson for the police's special investigations unit, the Hawks, said the man was arrested along with eight others in Honeydew late on Thursday night.
The men, who were mainly Zimbabwean nationals, allegedly stole people's identities, took out loans at banks to buy property and vehicles and resold the assets again. When the banks tried to trace the owners, they ran into a wall.The Times newspaper reported the investigation started when police found the Mini Cooper in which Mandoza, whose real name was Mduduzi Tshabalala, was injured when it crashed into a tree in Weltevreden Park last week. Mandoza, who suffered head injuries, was apparently in the back seat, while his friend - the owner of the car - arrived on the scene 45 minutes later after the police called him.Zondi said the Hawks had an ongoing project in which asset fraud was investigated, and the fact that this might have come out of the accident investigation may have been coincidental. The main case, he said, was in Silverton in Pretoria.He said it was possible that there may be more arrests as the investigation was ongoing."For now, it was only the eight," he said.The Times reported that one of the eight arrested was Mandoza's neighbour.
Zondi said Mandoza was not linked to the investigation at the moment and was not arrested.

Charles Taylor, Adrian Gallegos, Lauran Wellborn, and Daniele Pedrol all appeared in front of a judge on Sunday.

Charles Taylor, Adrian Gallegos, Lauran Wellborn, and Daniele Pedrol all appeared in front of a judge on Sunday.
"Pretty much anywhere that there's a piece of paper with someone's identifiers these individuals would use those means to obtain that," said Deputy District Attorney Robin Hammer.
Documents showed the large number people involved in this alleged ring broke into cars and went dumpster diving to get information that helped defraud financial institutions and individuals.
"Basically, they're writing fraudulent checks," said Chief Deputy DA Deborah Depalo. "They're using other people's credit cards and id to charge up purchases for themselves. They're essential stealing people identities and stealing their money as well."
"We're also learning that this Racketeering Ring is directly related to drugs, in fact court documents state that one of the suspects told police about a meth lab inside this storage company," said Will Carr.
Action 7 News arrived on the scene shortly after that meth bust at the end of January. Court documents state Lauran Wellborn told police "the owner of the company stays on the property and provides security for the cooks when they go in to make their meth."
"The criminals use methamphetamine, they also use heroine. So identities have a market value and those are traded freely in exchange for drugs, quite often that happens," said Deputy District Attorney Robin Hammer.
Authorities are still looking for six additional suspects in this case and tell us there could be many more as their investigation unfolds.
Authorities said they warn consumers should monitor their credit reports, to make sure their identity has not been stolen.

Tim Blixseth's fortune could soon come to light as a a judge considers whether the high-flying real estate developer took hundreds of millions


Tim Blixseth's fortune could soon come to light as a a judge considers whether the high-flying real estate developer took hundreds of millions of dollars in a fraud scheme that left the exclusive resort broke.Such a decision would be a turning point in one of the biggest bankruptcy cases to come through Montana and one that continues to air the dirty laundry of the uber-exclusive resort for the rich and famous. A trial looking at potential fraud ended Friday, leaving the issue up to a judge after he gets final written briefs.Once proclaimed a billionaire in Forbes magazine's list of the 400 richest Americans, Blixseth doesn't appear to have those kinds of assets anymore — and maybe never did.Blixseth has testified that near the peak of the real estate market in 2006 and 2007, his assets were about half a billion dollars. But he never did a full accounting and could only estimate.Creditors trying to recoup $286 million from Blixseth are already putting together their own list of Blixseth's assets: estates, land, companies and toys they say were all funded by fraudulent transfers out of the Yellowstone Club.
A full list of those assets was given to the court Friday, and U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Ralph Kirscher quickly sealed it from public view.The judge, who has already scolded Credit Suisse for "predatory lending practices" in granting a $375 million loan that buried the club in debt, is now focused on Blixseth. He could force Blixseth to pay back a lot of the money, and creditors are busy identifying Blixseth assets that include:A $100 million holding company called Desert Ranch with about 3,000 acres in its portfolio.A private island called Emerald Cay, adjacent to a ritzy Turks and Caicos location, currently listed for sale online at $48.5 million but valued by creditors at $35 million.

Harry Markopolos reveals the story of how he uncovered the $65 billion fraud

Harry Markopolos reveals the story of how he uncovered the $65 billion fraud behind the Bernie Madoff scandal in a new book entitled “No One Would Listen,” reports The Huffington Post.The book, set to hit shelves next week, recounts Markopolos’ path to discovering the Ponzi scheme before it became national news. What is perhaps most revealing about the investigator’s account is how many reporters and government officials Markopolos reached out to with his Madoff suspicions, all of whom ignored his complaints. Markopolos even describes an attempt to deliver his findings to then New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.In one of the book’s passages, according to The Huffington Post, Markopolos claims that he would might have killed Madoff if he ever felt threatened. Markopolos writes, “If he contacted me and threatened me, I was going to drive down to New York and take him out.”Markopolos was a previously unknown Boston accountant who has recently come into the spotlight for having tracked Madoff’s trail of fraud before the extent of the scheme was brought to light. When he was hired in 1991 to join Rampart Investment Management firm, Markopolos was assigned the task of reconstructing Madoff’s strategy to see if he could uncover the key to the investor’s great success, reports Boston.com.Though Markopolos was known as the office’s resident math whiz, he could not duplicate Madoff’s returns. When he suspected that Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme, Markopolos made continuous efforts to reach out to the Securities and Exchange Commission with memos regarding his suspicions of financial fraud, with no success. According to Boston.com, his last communication with the agency was just eight months before the scandal surfaced

fined Charles Palmer, high-profile director of IFA network and compliance consultancy Financial Ltd, £49,000 over pension switching failings.

fined Charles Palmer, high-profile director of IFA network and compliance consultancy Financial Ltd, £49,000 over pension switching failings.
The FSA has ordered the Gloucestershire-based network to review its pension switching cases and compensate clients where they received unsuitable advice.
The regulator initially found shortcomings with the management of the fee-based network, and its monitoring of advisers then uncovered problems with the quality of pension switching advice between April 2006 and August 2008. Financial Ltd told the FSA during its investigation: ‘We have a laid back approach to compliance: all members are experienced IFAs.'
Financial Ltd is the second firm to be punished by the FSA over pension switching advice, according to Margaret Cole, FSA director of enforcement and financial crime. ‘As the director of the firm, Palmer (pictured) was personally accountable for failing to take the steps needed to manage the risk of advisers giving potentially unsuitable advice during a period when the IFA network was expanding so rapidly,' she said.
The FSA said Palmer failed to establish an effective system for monitoring his advisers and did not ensure pension switching advice was demonstrably suitable. The FSA found in its review of 101 pension switching cases at Financial Ltd only 25 files were assessed as suitable.
Palmer also did not recruit enough compliance staff to cope with the rapid expansion of the network. The FSA noted the ratio of appointed representatives to staff ballooned to 4:1 in 2008 from 1:1 in 2003.
The FSA was also critical of the training offered by Financial Ltd to new advisers. A daily e-maill quiz was a core part of the training for new advisers along with seminars, but these were not compulsory. 'You did not ensure that the firm was properly organised to assess the level of engagement of its members or proactively manage training and competence requirements and gaps across the network,' stated the FSA.
Network and compliance consultancy Financial Ltd has been in business for 15 years and had 168 appointed representatives and 233 registered individuals in 2008. Financial Ltd and Palmer may be better known for their marketing arm IFAtv, which included interviews with Jon Maguire of Cru Investment Management plugging his troubled Africa Invest fund.

Thieves 'washing' stolen rent checks

 
Thieves 'washing' stolen rent checks
Names and amounts are being erased from stolen checks and other details are being written in. The work of these thieves is so good they have the tellers at the banks and check cashing stores fooledRebecca Gonzalez dropped off her rent check in February like she always does in her complex's drop box. Now she's out nearly $700. A thief stole her money order out of Capitol Place Apartment's front office. The complex blames Rebecca, though it's their box. Rebecca got a letter threatening to evict her."I feel they're liable for the money orders," said Gonzalez.
Thieves are changing names with the real signature washed out behind one in darker ink."They wash 'em and then pay people to cash 'em and give them a cut of money," explained Lt. Brian Mahoney of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department's Financial Crimes Unit.Thieves actually use acetone nail polish to wash out the names.
A pinkish hue from an acetone wash can be seen on one check where the numbers were replaced so cash stores can't trace the check.
Financial Crime Unit detectives are working the citywide case. But thieves are doing even, more using special software and paper to make counterfeits.

Florin Necula was being booked by the U.S. Secret Service when he grabbed a flash drive which allegedly contained damming evidence against him and swa

Florin Necula was being booked by the U.S. Secret Service when he grabbed a flash drive which allegedly contained damming evidence against him and swallowed it whole.Investigators were not deterred by the gut-wrenching turn of events. They sent Necula to New York Downtown Hospital, reports the paper, where doctors pulled the offending flash drive from his intestines.

Rebecca Engle and former Nebraska football player Brian Schuster are accused of improperly selling risky investments

Rebecca Engle and former Nebraska football player Brian Schuster are accused of improperly selling risky investments in several interrelated Florida companies to more than 130 investors.
The two had argued that the evidence didn't support the eight felony counts of securities fraud they each face because investors acknowledged the risks in writing. Prosecutors say many of the clients told investigators they were never fully informed about the hazards, so the written records don't tell the full story.
Gage County District Court Judge Paul Korslund ruled last week that the cases should proceed. He is hearing the Otoe County case because the judges in Otoe and Sarpy counties all excused themselves because of possible conflicts of interest.
Schuster's lawyer, Don Schense, said he didn't expect the judge to dismiss the case at this stage because of its magnitude.
"I expect all of these issues will be decided in the courtroom," Schense said.
Engle's lawyer, Steve Achelpohl, declined to comment on the ruling Wednesday
Prosecutors with the Nebraska Attorney General's office declined to comment on the ruling.
Most of the investors involved in these cases were nearing retirement age or had already retired, so they wanted conservative, stable investments with little risk. They claim Engle and Schuster instead invested their money in high-risk enterprises and never fully explained the risks.
Schuster, who played fullback for Nebraska from 1992 to 1996, worked with Engle in Nebraska City for several years. The two sold securities in American Capital Corp. and Royal Palm. According to court documents, Engle and Schuster described the Florida companies in glowing terms such as "can't-miss deals" or "mini Berkshire Hathaways," referring to the Omaha-based conglomerate run by billionaire Warren Buffett.
PrimEdge Inc. later bought American Capital and Royal Palm, and Schuster became the president and chief executive of PrimEdge. He is now a law student in South Dakota, and PrimEdge is listed as an inactive corporation by the Florida Secretary of State's office.
Engle lost her securities dealing license in February 2008 as part of an agreement with state regulators. She filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Arizona in the summer of 2008. In the bankruptcy filing, Engle said she had assets worth between $500,000 and $1 million, but estimated that she owes between $10 million and $50 million.

Faramarz Rafii Tari, 52, and Stefan Gillier, 38, were each charged on Wednesday with one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud.

Faramarz Rafii Tari, 52, and Stefan Gillier, 38, were each charged on Wednesday with one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud. They each face up to 20 years in prison, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in New York said.U.S. prosecutors charged two men for engineering an alleged fraudulent scheme to obtain more than $7 million of aircraft parts from Honeywell International Inc (HON.N), and the Pratt & Whitney unit of United Technologies Corp (UTX.N), without paying.Lawyers for the defendants could not immediately be located. Tari is a Canadian citizen who was arrested Wednesday morning in Manhattan, while Gillier is a Belgium native who lives in Quebec and remains at large, prosecutors said.According to investigators, the defendants are co-presidents of RTF International Inc, while Tari is also president of UN Air Service Inc.RTF from 2004 to 2006 allegedly ordered $8 million of parts from Honeywell, created an apparent credit balance by paying with $16.6 million of checks, and then stopped payment on $15.8 million of these checks. They said RTF then profited by selling the parts for less than Honeywell charged.Similarly, UN Air Service in 2007 and 2008 allegedly ordered parts from Pratt & Whitney, stopped payment on checks, and sold those parts for less than it was charged.The defendants "manufactured a competitive advantage by selling aircraft parts that they allegedly never paid for," Bharara said in a statement.Honeywell is based in Morris Township, New Jersey, and United Technologies in Hartford, Connecticut.

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