West Kendall woman who operates a Sweetwater travel agency is in jail

West Kendall woman who operates a Sweetwater travel agency is in jail after she allegedly bilked at least a half-dozen customers of thousands of dollars in bogus plane tickets to Nicaragua, police said.Ruth Morales, 49, owner of the Nicaraguita Travel Agency off Southwest 107th Avenue and West Flagler Street, was charged with five counts of grand theft and fraud.''We don't know her reasoning for doing this,'' Sweetwater Detective Reny Garcia said....

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Australia-based ANZ Banking Group Ltd “strange” and “without foundation,”

Australia-based ANZ Banking Group Ltd said Tuesday that a class action filed against it by US law firm Vianale & Vianale in the SDNY over certain disclosures is “strange” and “without foundation,” The lawsuit was filed on Monday alleging that ANZ violated US securities laws by failing to adequately disclose the range of risks arising from its loans to the failed Opes Prime. According to the complaint, ANZ lent hundreds of millions of dollars to Opes Prime, but without adequate disclosure of the risks the loans posed to ANZ. The day before...

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Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet grief-stricken after becoming one of the top 10 losers in the reportedly $50 billion Ponzi scheme

Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet grief-stricken after becoming one of the top 10 losers in the reportedly $50 billion Ponzi scheme - slashed both wrists with a boxcutter and bled to death, cops said Tuesday.Tidy, precise and punctilious to the end, the CEO of Access International Advisors locked the door of his 22nd floor office at 509 Madison Ave., sat in his swivel chair - and bled into a garbage pail to minimize the mess.It was the first known suicide connected to Madoff's scam.Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said de la Villehuchet told...

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Dina Wein-Reis' lawyers filed court papers in Indiana Wednesday, asking a federal judge there to transfer her fraud trial to New York.

Dina Wein-Reis' lawyers filed court papers in Indiana Wednesday, asking a federal judge there to transfer her fraud trial to New York. West Side socialite accused of scamming Fortune 500 companies out of millions wants to be tried in her hometown.The 44-year-old mother of three cited the expense of putting on a defense some 600 miles from home when she plans to call at least 20 character witnesses. "This financial burden is exacerbated by the fact that the government has seized virtually all of her personal, real and financial assets," lawyer John...

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No winners from alleged Madoff Ponzi as clawbacks rule the day

In the CEP autosurf Ponzi scheme case, a court-appointed receiver filed dozens of lawsuits against program “winners,” forcing them to return profits on the theory there can be no winners in an illegal enterprise. The receiver, William F. Perkins, placed CEP in bankruptcy and then methodically went about the task of clawing back money for the estate.Perkins, who effectively is running CEP as a debtor-in-possession, has negotiated settlements with a number of winners.Last month he triumphed over CEP’s owners, Clayton Kimbrell and Trevor Reed, in...

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Marc Dreier ,Prosecutors have announced a second arrest in the fraud case

Prosecutors have announced a second arrest in the fraud case facing a prominent Manhattan lawyer accused of duping hedge funds into making bogus investments.Broker Kosta Kovachev was charged Tuesday with wire fraud in a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in Manhattan. It was not immediately clear who will represent him in court.The complaint accused Kovachev of posing as the comptroller for a developer whose offices were used to convince a hedge fund to buy a worthless investment.Earlier this month, lawyer Marc Dreier was accused of causing...

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Ausaf Umar Siddiqui, 42, who goes by "Omar" and was Fry's vice president of merchandising and operations, appeared Monday in federal court,

Ausaf Umar Siddiqui, 42, who goes by "Omar" and was Fry's vice president of merchandising and operations, appeared Monday in federal court, where prosecutors filed a complaint alleging he masterminded 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. After 10 years with the company, Siddiqui was fired Monday. Siddiqui was known around the office for driving fast cars, carrying wads of $100 bills in his pocket and boisterously rooting...

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Leon Nikolaidis,was ordered into custody on Wednesday. He will be eligible for release for Christmas next year.

Leon Nikolaidis, a sole practitioner from Newport whose office was in Elizabeth Street in the city, was bailed and able to work after the Supreme Court stayed an attempt by the Law Society of NSW to cancel his practising certificate just before last Christmas.The stay continued all year, although it was meant to apply only for the three months it was thought it would take for his appeal against his conviction and sentence to be heard and determined, so some clients would not be disadvantaged and the sale of his firm to an employee who testified...

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Fairfield Greenwich Group's website states that more than half of its investments are tied up in vehicles connected to Bernard L. Madoff Investment

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...

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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 Tim...

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at what rate should the Bank of England begin to panic? Do they feel comfortable at parity. Would it be OK to let sterling sink to 0.75 euro cents?

No need to panic! No need to panic!A quick question: at what rate should the Bank of England begin to panic? Do they feel comfortable at parity. Would it be OK to let sterling sink to 0.75 euro cen...

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Detectives are investigating one of Britain’s biggest buy-to-let schemes in which large numbers of investors have seen their savings wiped out

"Detectives are investigating one of Britain’s biggest buy-to-let schemes in which large numbers of investors have seen their savings wiped out."The article itself is a rehash of that old story that buy-to-let is riddled with fraud. However, I thought it interesting that it was top of the Times "most read" internet articl...

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Private jets. Top Lehman executives rarely left home without one; most had not taken a commercial flight for a decade or more.

Dick Fuld, chairman and chief executive of Lehman Brothers, was seriously out of touch with reality became palpable. Speaking just weeks after the collapse of Bear Stearns, a rival investment bank, had caused Lehman’s share price to fall by 48% in a morning, he told his shareholders he thought “the worst is behind us” in the financial markets. Soon afterwards the markets became so dislocated that Lehman’s clever hedging strategy — the techniques that had protected it from bad losses – came unstuck. A gigantic loss position built up that would very...

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