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...

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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,...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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 sa...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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 sou...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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Thieves 'washing' stolen rent checks

 Thieves 'washing' stolen rent checksNames 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...

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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 intestin...

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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...

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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...

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