FINANCIAL ARRESTS WORLDWIDE

News International faces FBI phone hacking probe

2012-01-20T09:10:00.001Z

Yesterday the company paid the actor £130,000 after accepting that it had published stories gleaned from hacking his phone. One of the articles News International accepted had come from phone hacking was a 2003 story in the News of the World which referred to telephone calls Law’s assistant Ben Jackson had made to him when he arrived at an airport. It is believed the airport was John F. Kennedy airport in New York. News International’s admission has led the US authorities to investigate whether a crime took place on American soil. It is thought the possibility that Law’s phone was using an American network at the time could lead to offences having been committed under US law.

Tax adviser guilty of fraud scheme

2012-01-16T06:09:00.001Z

A professional tax adviser from Bedfordshire has been convicted of trying to defraud honest taxpayers of £70 million, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) said. David Perrin spent his cut of the stolen cash on expensive second homes, exotic holidays, works of art and luxury cars, a spokeswoman said. The 46-year-old, of Leagrave, Luton, Bedfordshire, was found guilty at Blackfriars Crown Court and will be sentenced next month, she added. Perrin, deputy managing director at Vantis Tax Ltd, devised and operated a tax avoidance scheme which he sold to wealthy taxpayers in order to exploit the law on giving shares to charity, she said. The scheme allowed him to pocket more than £2 million in fees from unsuspecting clients. He used a network of finance professionals to advise more than 600 wealthy clients to buy shares, worth a few pence each, in four new companies he had set up, the spokeswoman said. He then listed the companies on the Channel Islands Stock Exchange and paid people money from an offshore account to buy and sell the shares simply to inflate their price. The share owners then donated 329 million shares to various unsuspecting registered charities and tried to claim £70 million tax relief on a total of £213 million of income and company profits. This was based on the shares being worth up to £1 each, rather than the pennies they were originally bought for. Perrin also used the bogus scheme to claim money back, the spokeswoman said. The scheme proved so popular that Vantis employees performed a smug celebratory song at their annual conference, to the tune of I will Survive, she said. It included the verse: "They should have changed that stupid law, they should have buggered charity, but they have left that lovely tax relief, for folks to pay to me." Jim Graham, HMRC criminal investigator, said: "With his knowledge of the tax system, Perrin thought that he was one step ahead of both HMRC and the law. "This cynical fraud not only stole millions of pounds from taxpayers, but also conned innocent charities into accepting gifts of virtually worthless shares, just so Perrin could inflate his own criminal earnings." Perrin was charged with cheating the revenue by dishonestly submitting and dishonestly facilitating and inducing others to submit claims for tax relief which falsely stated values of shares which were gifted to charities. He will be sentenced on February 9 and confiscation proceedings are under way, the spokeswoman said.

Top former art dealer faces 87 charges after fraud probe

2012-01-16T06:04:00.001Z

One of Australia's former leading art dealers, Ronald Coles, faces up to 10 years in jail after being charged today with 87 offences relating to an alleged multimillion-dollar investment art fraud scheme. Mr Coles, 64, was ordered to appear at Gosford police station at 10am today. Fraud Squad detectives formally charged him following an "extremely protracted and legally intricate" two-year investigation into his business affairs. Under the Crimes Act, Mr Coles was charged with 77 counts of "larceny as a bailee" and a further 10 counts of "director/officer cheat or defraud". For more than 30 years, Mr Coles specialised in fine art by some of Australia's most celebrated artists, including Sir Arthur Streeton, Eugene von Guerard, Brett Whiteley and Norman Lyndsay. Advertising on national radio and television, he offered clients an opportunity to boost their life savings through the purchase of investment art, which he bought and sold on their behalf, using their superannuation funds. NSW Police launched Strike Force Glasson in January 2009 after a Fairfax investigation unearthed dozens of investors who were missing millions of dollars in lost art and money, all allegedly retained by Mr Coles. Today's police charges relate to more than $8 million in financial loss to a total of 43 clients nationwide. Mr Coles failed to make conditional bail of $50,000. It is understood he offered a car and paintings as surety but they were refused. He is due to appear at Gosford Local Court shortly.

Michael Brown: From £1.6m villa to prison yard, downfall of the Lib Dem fraudster

2012-01-15T02:07:00.001Z

The knock at the door did not unduly disturb the man relaxing on the terrace of the £1.6 million villa overlooking the Caribbean. Even when his wife opened it to discover members of the Dominican Republic’s armed police outside, Darren Patrick Nally was unfazed. He was sure his secret was safe: he was not Nally, a man who said he was an Irish singer and had already been detained in prison on charges of failing to pay his debts. In fact he was Michael Brown, a 45-year-old British fraudster whose web of lies and deceit had made him millions – £2.4 million of which he had donated to the Liberal Democrats for their 2005 election campaign, becoming their biggest single donor. As he was arrested for unpaid rent at a former apartment, Brown was nonchalant. At the police station he told the local assistant prosecutor, Elizabeth Rijo, that he would pay the debt and be back home in time for dinner.

Five men have been arrested on suspicion of fraudulent transactions from accounts held at Bristol-based stockbroker Rowan Dartington

2012-01-12T12:54:00.001Z

The arrests have been confirmed by Avon and Somerset Constabulary, which said that the men aged 45, 36, 49, 57 and 23 have all been bailed pending further enquiries but not charged.

The arrests are in connection with high value fraudulent transactions that saw money leave accounts held at Rowan Dartington. The events are understood to have taken place prior to the management buyout headed by current chief Graham Coxell (pictured), who is not one of the five arrested, in February of last year.

A spokeswoman for Avon and Somerset police said the investigation expanded beyond the Bristol area, with the Cumbria police force also involved. She was unable to confirm if any of the five suspects were former Rowan Dartington employees.

She stressed that Rowan Dartington was the victim in the investigation rather than a suspect and ‘substantial’ amounts of money were involved.

The FSA declined to comment and said it was unable to confirm or deny whether Rowan Dartington was the subject of an investigation by the regulator.

In a separate incident, Rowan Dartington was previously fined £511,000 by the FSA in June 2010 for failing to protect and properly segregate client accounts over a two-year period, following a settlement system failure dating back to 2007. This caused the firm’s back office to be saddled with more than 150,000 unreconciled trades and eventually led to a £1.4 million black hole in the stockbroker’s accounts.

Since Coxell took over the business in February last year, he has sought to position the business to benefit from the retail distribution review and announced plans to launch a platform. He has also sought to rebuild the investment management team with the hires of Ashcourt Rowan’s head of collective research Tim Cockerill and Oliver Cowell from Redmayne-Bentley.

Rowan Dartington declined to comment.

Trial begins in giant Spanish corruption scandal

2012-01-10T21:39:00.001Z

top Spanish former official went on trial Monday at the start of legal proceedings into a raft of corruption scandals in which King Juan Carlos' son-in-law is also accused. Jaume Matas, the ex-head of the regional government of the Balearic islands who had also served as environment minister, appeared at a court in Palma de Majorca alongside three other suspects. They have been charged with embezzlement, fraud, falsifying documents and influence peddling. Matas was charged in March 2010 and was released after paying a record bail of 3.0 million euros ($3.8 million). Prosecutors are demanding an eight and a half years jail term. Matas served as president of the government of the Balearic Islands between 1996-1999 and then between 2003-2007. He was environment minister between 2000-2003. The so-called "Palma Arena affair" as the Spanish press has dubbed the corruption scandal centres on the suspected embezzlement of public funds during the construction of a velodrome in Palma de Majorca between 2005-2007. An investigation concluded that the cycling track had an unjustified cost overrun of 41 million euros. That led authorities on the archipelago to uncover other cases of suspected embezzlement of public funds, including one allegedly involving royal son-in-law Inaki Urdangarin. The 43-year-old ex-Olympic handball player is scheduled to appear in court on February 25 as part of a probe into corruption at a non-profit organisation, Instituto Noos, which he headed between 2004 and 2006. The probe centres notably on a payment of 2.3 million euros to Instituto Noos for organising a tourism and sports conference in 2005 and 2006. Urdangarin, who has the title Duke of Palma and is married to the king's youngest daughter, Princess Cristina, has denied any wrongdoing. Last month the royal family suspended the the duke from official engagements and the palace's highest official, Rafael Spottorno, gave an unprecedented rebuke, telling Spanish media his behaviour "does not seem exemplary".

Glenn Mulcaire, the private eye at the centre of the News of the World phone hacking scandal, has been arrested

2011-12-07T23:13:00.001Z

Glenn Mulcaire, the private eye at the centre of the News of the World phone hacking scandal, has been arrested by Scotland Yard detectives pursuing a fresh investigation into phone intercepts, according to a person familiar with the inquiry. Officers working on Operation Weeting – the Metropolitan Police’s second probe into phone hacking at News International, which owned the now-defunct Sunday tabloid – announced on Wednesday that they had arrested a 41-year-old man who was being held on suspicion of conspiracy to hack voicemail messages and perverting the course of justice. Mr Mulcaire is the 16th person to be arrested under the new operation, and has already served a six-month prison sentence in 2007 after pleading guilty to intercepting phone messages. He was arrested at his home in Surrey in a dawn swoop and held in a south London police station. Detectives on Operation Weeting have used the private investigator’s notebooks – which contain the names of nearly 5,800 potential victims and run to around 11,000 pages – as the basis for their investigation, trawling through the documents to identify those who may have been hacked. The hacking scandal was reignited this summer when it was revealed that the News of the World had hacked into the voicemail messages of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler after she went missing in 2002, leading her parents to believe that she was still alive. Last month, Mr Mulcaire released a statement through his lawyer, denying that he had deleted voicemail messages on Ms Dowler’s phone. “[He] did not delete messages and had no reason to do so,” the statement read. The Financial Times could not reach Mr Mulcaire’s lawyer for comment on Wednesday. Chris Bryant, a Labour MP and suspected hacking victim, told the FT he was “quite encouraged” that Mr Mulcaire had been taken in for questioning. “I always thought this was a logical next step, but not one [the police] would take unless they had sufficient fresh evidence to put to [Mr Mulcaire], and it seems now they do,” he said. News of the arrest came as lawyers for Andy Coulson, the News of the World’s former editor, argued in the High Court on Wednesday that the tabloid’s parent company should continue to pay Mr Coulson’s legal bills arising from the criminal investigation into phone hacking. It emerged during the course of Mr Coulson’s evidence that News Group Newspapers – a subsidiary of News International – had continued to reimburse Mr Coulson for legal fees relating to his involvement in the judge-led phone hacking inquiry and parliamentary select committee hearings. The court heard that Mr Coulson had received a letter from Tom Mockridge, the chief executive of News International, in August informing him of an “immediate cessation” of payments in relation to criminal legal fees.

US agents laundered drug money

2011-12-04T21:23:00.001Z

Anti-narcotics agents working for the US government have laundered or smuggled millions of dollars in drug proceeds to see how the system works and use the information against Mexican drug cartels, The New York Times reported Sunday. Citing unnamed current and former federal law enforcement officials, the newspaper said the agents, primarily with the Drug Enforcement Administration, have handled shipments of hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal cash across borders. Some 45,000 people have been killed in Mexico since 2006, when its government launched a major military crackdown against the powerful drug cartels that have terrorized border communities as they battled over lucrative smuggling routes. According to these officials, the operations were aimed at identifying how criminal organizations move their money, where they keep their assets and, most important, who their leaders are, the report said. The agents had deposited the proceeds in accounts designated by traffickers, or in shell accounts set up by agents, the paper noted. While the DEA conducted such operations in other countries, it began doing so in Mexico only in the past few years, The Times said. As it launders drug money, the agency often allows cartels to continue their operations over months or even years before making seizures or arrests, the report said. According to The Times, agency officials declined to publicly discuss details of their work, citing concerns about compromising their investigations. But Michael Vigil, a former senior official who is currently working for a private contracting company called Mission Essential Personnel, is quoted by the paper as saying: "We tried to make sure there was always close supervision of these operations so that we were accomplishing our objectives, and agents weren?t laundering money for the sake of laundering money."

Spanish savings bank has fired two directors and is investigating two former executives for allegedly syphoning off €20 million ($26.5 million) into secret pension funds

2011-11-26T22:10:00.001Z

Spanish savings bank has fired two directors and is investigating two former executives for allegedly syphoning off €20 million ($26.5 million) into secret pension funds, the bank said Saturday.

The board of directors of Caixa Penedes bank had "required the departure" of its president, Ricard Pages, and director general Manuel Troyano. It said both men had agreed to leave, the bank said in a statement.

The decision comes after state prosecutor for the northeastern region of Catalonia, Teresa Compte, said her office was investigating all four on suspicion of involvement in illegal activity.

Regional newspaper La Vanguardia said the case was the first time prosecutors had investigated senior executives for "criminal responsibility" in their handling of a savings bank.

The prosecutor named the other two former executives as Joan Caellas and Jaume Jorba.

Caixa Penedes along with partners Cajamurcia, CajaGRANADA and SA NOSTRA owns Banco Mare Nostrum, S.A. (BMN). The group received €916 million ($1.21 billion) in restructuring aid from the Bank of Spain's Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring (FROB).

The fund was set up to aid institutions meet higher reserve requirements and is aimed at strengthening their finances and quelling fears that Spain might be Europe's next country to need a bailout.

Caixa Penedes said its board "disapproved of the content, method, lack of transparency, unusual nature and disproportionate size" of the remuneration package the four directors had helped themselves to.

The pension funds were set up in another institution without the knowledge of Caixa Penedes's board.

Ignacio Fernandez Toxo, spokesman for trade union Comisiones Obreras said that if the money could be recovered it could help offset the €45 million ($59.53 million) in wage bill savings BMN had recently said it would seek from its work force. He said many BMN employees are members of Comisiones Obreras.

The investigation comes as Spain is burdened with an unemployment rate of 21.5 percent — nearly 5 million people out of work — the eurozone's highest.

The country's borrowing costs have also risen to an almost unsustainable level of 7 percent interest rate on 10-year bonds. An auction of 12- and 18-month bonds last week also went badly, with Spain forced to offer very high interest rates to investors.

Mexico army seizes Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman drug lord's $15 million

2011-11-23T23:49:00.001Z

Mexico's army seized nearly $15.4 million from the organization of the country's most powerful drug lord, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, officials said Tuesday, marking a rare financial blow to cartels. The seizure was revealed the same day U.S. border police revealed the third discovery in a week of drug-smuggling tunnel under the border with Mexico. In Mexico, the military said it found the cash was found in a vehicle on Nov. 18 in the northern border city of Tijuana and that it was linked to Guzman's operations. The haul marked the second-largest cash seizure by the military since President Felipe Calderon sent the country's armed forces out to battle drug cartels in 2006, the statement said. Some $26 million was captured in September 2008 in Culiacan, the capital of Guzman's home state of Sinaloa. Only on msnbc.com 'Grateful to be alive': Teen rescues woman from fire Mexicans cross US border to sell their plasma Chinese consumers say: Fix this fridge or sledgehammers coming Black Friday 'flash mobs,' sit-ins urged Look out kids, here comes the 'Wolf Daddy' Move to ban alleged insider trading faces pitfalls Will Gingrich's comments haunt him? About 45,000 people have died in the conflict in the last five years and the government has captured or killed dozens of top level drug smugglers.

British bonds win 'safe haven' tag in eurozone debt storm

2011-11-20T11:05:00.001Z

British government bonds are attracting strong support, in sharp contrast to their troubled eurozone peers as investors seek a safehaven from a debt crisis now spreading to Italy, Spain and even France. British government bonds, or gilts as they are known, are in huge demand largely because the Bank of England is buying them up with newly-created money that it hopes can in turn be used to stimulate an anaemic economic recovery, analysts say. But investors are also reassured by the British coalition government's determined efforts to slash state debt and avoid the severe troubles that have snared the crisis-hit eurozone trio of Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

TWO MILLION EUROS CLAIMED AFTER CANCELLED STONES CONCERT

2011-11-20T10:55:00.001Z

The PP mayor of El Ejido in Almería, Francisco Góngora, has criticized the "negligence" of the former government team and announced that the city council are to begin legal proceedings against the promotions company who were to stage a concert by the Rolling Stones in 2006.

Following the findings of "many irregularities" in the case, the council are now seeking to claim a total of 2,251,000€, which they feel they are owed, in view of the cancellation.

The announcement was made at a press conference in which Francisco Góngora claimed that there was a “contractual obligation” by the promoter to ensure that the concert went ahead and that even if the company were insolvent, then they would seek recompense from the individuals responsible for the incomplete commitment made to the previous government team.

Information indicates that there was a contractual clause that stipulated that insurance must be provided that should the concert be cancelled, then the promoter would be able to repay any money owed, in full, through an insurance claim. It is believed that this insurance was never provided.

Although some money is said to have been returned, it was only about half of the 4.176 million euro that the city had paid for the organisation of the concert.

There also appears to be a lack of information as to where the money actually went and who might be accountable for the cash given to the company by the council. There have also been allegations made that this whole case could be part of a much wider campaign of both political and corporate corruption.

Now, reviewing the clauses of the original contract, it has been found that the rights to claim the money back would expire after 15 years.

Góngora, also stated that there were economic losses of 2.6 million euro recorded after the second concert by the Rolling Stones in El Ejido held in 2007, which were due to "mismanagement" whereas the projected ticket sales were calculated at 60,000 attendees, but only 20,000 tickets were actually sold.

Referring to the award of the second contract by the previous council, Góngora stated that "despite the failed previous contract they rehired the same company for four million euro of which they did not deduct anything owed," continuing that he considered the failings to be down to the complacency of the previous PSOE government.

The Ministry of Interior for Andalusia had already imposed a 60,150 euro fine on the organisers for breaching the rules on show cancellations in failing to return ticket money within the maximum four days which is set out by the governing body. In actual fact, it took several weeks for the organisers to return the money raised on the 50,500 tickets sold for the cancelled concert.

Ex-policeman jailed over VAT fraud

2011-11-13T15:42:00.001Z

former police officer who admitted his part in a £365 million VAT fraud has been jailed for 10 years and three months. The conspiracy that Nigel Cranswick directed has taken the equivalent of 25 years of work to investigate, Judge Brian Forster said. The 47-year-old ex-South Yorkshire Police officer was a director of Ideas 2 Go, and, despite its modest base in a Sheffield business park, he claimed it bought and sold £2 billion worth of goods in just eight months. He has since admitted that the firm's trading, largely in mobile phones and computer software, was fictitious, and the aim was to generate paperwork from fake sales in order to claim back a fortune in VAT from HM Revenue and Customs. Judge Forster, sitting at Newcastle Crown Court, said: "This case concerned planned dishonesty resulting in the loss to the Revenue in the region of £365 million. "There were purported sales of billions of pounds. "The prosecution rightly described the case as an unprecedented attack on the Revenue. "The case has taken 25 man-years to investigate." Cranswick was recruited to play his role in the MTIC (missing Trader intra-community) fraud by others. Also known as carousel fraud, it involves importing goods from other EU states which are then sold through contrived business-to-business transactions. Cranswick, of Danby Road, Kiveton, Sheffield, admitted conspiracy to cheat HMRC at a hearing last month. After the sentencing, Exchequer Secretary David Gauke said: "This Government will not tolerate dishonest people stealing public money. "This sentence shows that those who try to commit fraud need to think again - HMRC will find you and the courts will punish you. "The additional £917m we have invested in HMRC will see more cases like this successfully prosecuted, sending a clear and powerful message." The judge said the sentencing exercise was to punish the offending and deter others. "The figures in this case are astonishing, they reveal the blatant nature of the fraud," he said. Between June 2005 and February 2006, I2G supposedly carried out almost 6,000 deals, with a turnover of £2.4 billion. Sentencing Cranswick, the judge said: "You were immediately before this fraud a serving police officer. Almost unbelievably you retired from the police force and became the organiser of this fraudulent operation. "You set up the company, you clearly accepted the direction of others - the organisers who are not before this court." Outside court, HMRC said Cranswick went "from rags to riches" soon after retiring, having been heavily in debt as a police officer. A spokeswoman said: "He made lavish improvements to his home, rented a luxury apartment in the Spanish town of Marbella and paid for private schooling and tennis lessons for his children. "Cranswick claimed that in the first six weeks of trading Ideas 2 Go had turned over more than £527 million. "The company had traded over £47 million before they even got round to opening a bank account for the business." HMRC assistant director for criminal investigation Paul Rooney said: "As a police officer Cranswick knew full well that he was breaking the law, yet, motivated by greed, he chose to overlook it for the opportunity of making what he wrongly assumed would be easy money. "He now has to pay a very high price for his poor judgment and lack of integrity. "This was a sophisticated fraud designed to steal hundreds of millions of pounds of tax, but it started to unravel when our investigations identified sales for more than 50,000 mobile phones, which the manufacturers hadn't even begun producing in their factories." Cranswick nodded as the judge passed sentence, and gestured to members of his family in the public gallery as he was led away. Also sentenced after admitting conspiracy to cheat the Revenue were Thomas Murphy, 27, of Dinnington, who was jailed for four and a half years; Cranswick's brother-in-law, Darren Smyth, 42, from Beech Road, Maltby, and Brian Olive, 56, from Buttermere Close, Doncaster, who were sentenced to three years and four months each; and former housing officer Andrew Marsh, 28, from Sheffield, who was jailed for two years and eight months. Cranswick's 44-year-old sister, Clare Reid, married to Smyth, was handed a nine-month sentence, suspended for 18 months, and ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work after admitting two counts of false accounting. Cranswick styled himself as a singer-songwriter and can be seen on his website strumming a guitar to a song called Hit And Miss with the opening lines: "I'm in trouble, falling down a hole. How I got here, I won't ever know." He was lead singer with an indie band called Not The Police.

10,000 border arrests due to screening system

2011-10-31T12:41:00.001Z

10,000 criminals including rapists and murderers have been held at the UK border thanks to a screening system begun in 2005, a minister has said. Air and sea carriers using UK ports and airports submit passenger and crew details electronically to the e-Borders screening system, prior to travel. It results in about 52 weekly arrests, Immigration Minister Damian Green says. He praised the UK Border Agency and police for the scheme, which covers up to 55% of journeys to and from the UK. "By checking passenger and crew information before travel, law enforcement agencies can apprehend those trying to evade justice," Mr Green said. "From 2013 the new dedicated Border Policing Command, part of the National Crime Agency, will further strengthen security at the border, providing leadership and coordination based on a single national threat assessment and strategy." E-Borders has not avoided controversy. The government faces the threat of a lawsuit from Raytheon, the firm which managed the £750m system until Mr Green terminated its contract in July 2010 over delays to its full implementation. Raytheon says the problems were down to UK Border Agency mismanagement of the scheme. But John Donlon, of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said e-borders would continue to play a key role. Extending scheme "Police have been able to identify those wanted for offences before they leave or when they return to the UK, bringing offenders to justice and supporting counter-terrorist and serious crime investigations," he said. More than 125 million passengers' details were screened in the year to September, resulting in 2,700 arrests. Among those detained were 11 murderers, 22 rapists, 316 violent criminals and 126 drug offenders, government figures show. The government is extending the number of routes and carriers covered by the e-Borders system and will re-introduce exit checks by 2015. "Inevitably as more routes are covered the number of arrests will grow," Mr Donlon added. The border agency said recent successes included the arrest at Manchester Airport of a 44-year-old man who was later charged with sexually grooming a boy after an alert from Swiss authorities, and the detention of a man wanted for a rape 14 years ago. Other cases involved the jailing of a Spanish drugs courier trying to smuggle 1kg of cocaine from Brazil, the arrest of one man from Dubai who was wanted for a £5.7m theft and another who was suspected of a £50m fraud. Meanwhile, the agency said on Sunday it had blacklisted nearly 3,000 banks it believed could not be trusted to verify documents supporting student visa applications.

Real IRA terrorist has been jailed for 12 years after being found guilty of buying weapons and explosives which he wanted to use to “kill Brits.

2011-10-26T23:44:00.001+01:00

Michael Campbell (Pic: PA)

A Real IRA terrorist has been jailed for 12 years after being found guilty of buying weapons and explosives which he wanted to use to “kill Brits.”

Irishman Michael Campbell - brother of Omagh bomber Liam - was snared in a six year MI5 sting across three countries with agents pretending to be arms dealers.

Yesterday he was finally jailed by a Lithuania court after spending three years awaiting trial and having been snared by an amazing MI5 undercover operation.

Campbell, 39, was secretly filmed in a field in Lithuania pointing a high-power Barret sniper rifle which he later bragged he would use to kill British people.

Michael Campbell testing weapons in the Lithuanian countryside (Pic: PA)

Using secret filming Campbell was caught on camera inspecting the weapons stash in a lock-up garage (Pic: PA)

Campbell's shopping list for weapons (Pic:PA)

He was also recorded on video in a garage buying weapons and explosives from an undercover Lithiuanian agent he nicknamed “Rambo.”

But the hero of the MI5 plot was a cigarette smuggler - turned MI5 agent who went deep undercover using the cover name Robert Jardine.

Using his connections Robert Jardine coolly penetrated deep into the Real IRA network knowing he could have been killed if his cover was blown.

At one stage in his dealings with dark-haired Campbell and other terror suspects - who cannot be named for legal reasons - he was bundled into a padded van containing a shovel.

Sources have told The Daily Mirror he feared he had been rumbled and was being driven to his death - but it was just a Real IRA tactic to unnerve him.

Judge Arunas Kisielus of the Vilnius Regional Court sentenced Michael Campbell to 12 years in prison for weapons offenses and supporting a terrorist group.

Covert footage showed Campbell paid £5,200 for explosives, grenade launchers, detonators, AK-47s and an assassin’s rifle to Lithuanian agents posing as arms dealers.

He says on tape: “You imagine, with a six-hour timer, we could be over to London and back,” Campbell says in an audio clip after mulling over a price list for explosives and detonators. “Just tick, tick, tick, tick ... gone.

In court Campbell had pleaded not guilty.

The Real IRA’s worst crime to date was the 1998 Omagh bombing which killed 29 and for which Liam Campbell -Michael’s brother - was found liable in a civil trial.

MI5’s Operation Uncritical ruined a bid by the Real IRA to get guns and explosives to mount a deadly terror campaign on the British mainland.

Yesterday a senior security official said: “The conviction of Michael Campbell is the result of a successful joint operation between the Security Service and the Lithuanian authorities.

“Working closely together, along with a selfless and brave agent, they have put behind bars a senior member of the Real IRA whose intention was to kill innocent members of the public in Northern Ireland and in Britain.”

Courageously Jardine - who now lives in a secret location - for years risked his life to provide his MI5 handlers with intelligence about the Real IRA.

The agent, who was referred to in court as “Robert Jardine”, was a legitimate businessman based in southern England dealing in “imports and exports.”

But he also had an illicit sideline in smuggling cigarettes from Eastern Europe - and it was that which caught the eye of the security service and led him into a world of terrorist intrigue.

The Real IRA (RIRA) was using the contraband cigarettes to fund its terrorist activities and in late 2002 Jardine was recruited as an agent by MI5.

Two years later RIRA asked Jardine whether his contacts in Eastern Europe could help them get weapons. And - carefully directed by MI5 - he laid a trail of deception which drew in the terrorists.

The court heard that in January 2005 he handed over a price list to a contact.

The following July Jardine and the contact crossed the border into Lithuania where Jardine introduced her to “Tomas”.

In fact Tomas was working for the Lithuanian security service, the VSD - the first in a cast of “role-players” deployed to convince the RIRA that the offer of weapons was real.

The RIRA gave Jardine the first of two hand-written shopping lists of weapons they wanted to buy - including sniper rifles, rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launchers, hand grenades, detonators and Semtex plastic explosives.

Then, in late 2006, another RIRA man, moved to revive the arrangement. Jardine responded by saying he would provide the introductions but the republicans would have to cut their own deal. The “sting” was back on.

Then Michael Campbell entered the story.

On August 29 2007, Michael Campbell and another associate travelled to a lodge in the Lithuanian countryside belonging to the supposed arms dealer.

There they were given their first chance to test guns and explosives.

Next day they were introduced to a second dealer - whom the two Irishmen quickly nicknamed “Rambo” - who was to provide them with the actual weapons they wanted.

Like Tomas, however, Rambo was in reality working for the VSD.

Campbell and his colleague agreed to pay a deposit on explosives, detonators and timers.

Afterwards an excited Campbell was secretly recorded telling his associate: “Look at it this way, for one of them and one of them you have a bomb - for f****** a hundred quid.

“F*** me. You imagine us getting over to England if you’d ten of them and ten clocks in a holdall. You imagine, with a six-hour timer we could be over to London and back.

“Just tick, tick, tick - gone. Leave it anywhere.”

That October, Campbell met Rambo again in Marbella in southern Spain.

This time the RIRA man said he wanted a first instalment of weapons - including two rocket propelled grenades as well as the explosives - against the deposit.

On January 21 2008, Campbell went to Lithuania to inspect his purchase and finalise the arrangements.

That evening the couple dined with Rambo who the following day took Campbell to a lock-up garage where the weapons were stashed.

A hidden camera secretly filmed as Campbell examines one of the detonators and asks whether they would be “good for booby traps”.

“They would be good for under a car, wouldn’t they?” he says. “Anchored to the wheel and then the car goes round - bang.”

Campbell was also filmed paying a further deposit for a powerful Barrett sniper rifle - the type of weapon used to kill Lance Bombardier Stephen Restorick, the last British soldier to die at the hands of the IRA in 1997.

When Rambo demands what it would be used for - saying he was not prepared to sell it just “to shoot roe deer or wild boar” - Campbell tells him: “No, no, we will be shooting from across borders. The border. You know, from one side to the other.”

Asked who the target would be, Campbell replies simply “Brits”.

Hells Angel biker rammed intentionally, dragged a mile by East Bay Paratransit bus in San Leandro

2011-10-24T00:24:00.001+01:00

A paratransit bus driver intentionally rammed a Hells Angels biker on Interstate 580, and then dragged him about a mile, killing him, a CHP spokesman said. The biker, who has not been identified, was traveling eastbound on I-580 in San Leandro near Grand Avenue with a small group of Hells Angels members before 4 p.m. when an altercation began, said CHP Sgt. Trent Cross. After being hit, the motorcyclist and his bike were dragged for about a mile, said San Leandro police Lt. Greg Lemmon. Eventually, the biker was released from under the East Bay Paratransit bus, but the driver kept dragging the motorcycle, which was wedged underneath the front grill, until the vehicle stopped on the shoulder just east of the 150th Avenue onramp. The Hells Angels biker was flown to Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley, where he was pronounced dead, Lemmon said. The bus driver has been arrested, Lemmon said. Police are interviewing four witnesses who saw the incident. "The preliminary information they are providing was that it wasn't an accident, it was an intentional ramming," Lemmon said. All eastbound lanes were closed from Grand Avenue to 150th Avenue so police could conduct a homicide investigation over a large swath of freeway, Cross said. The lanes were expected to remain closed until 10 or 11 p.m., he said, and there were significant traffic delays in the area. An East Bay Paratransit manager referred calls to First Transit, a Advertisement contract agency that operates the bus. The First Transit representative did not return calls. No passengers were on board the bus during the collision, said San Leandro police Sgt. Doug Calcagno. The paratransit bus provides door-to-door service for people unable to ride regular public transit because of disabilities. It has been a tragic autumn for the Hells Angels motorcycle club. San Jose chapter President Jeffrey "Jethro" Pettigrew was killed outside a Nevada casino last month. At his packed funeral Oct. 15, Steve Tausan, a 52-year-old Hells Angels enforcer and friend of Pettigrew's, was shot dead.

Stockton search for Hells Angels slaying suspect comes up empty

2011-10-24T00:18:00.001+01:00

A man suspected of fatally shooting a member of the Hells Angels at a recent funeral in San Jose was not holed up in a Stockton home Saturday as police had believed. Steve Ruiz, 38, of San Jose is being sought for allegedly shooting and killing fellow Hells Angels member Steve Tausan, 52, after the two fought Oct. 15 at a funeral for a slain motorcycle club member, according to police. Police had received information that Ruiz had been hiding out at the three-bedroom home on the 3700 block of McDougald Boulevard in Stockton, said San Jose police Sgt Jason Dwyer. Investigators asked Stockton police and the San Joaquin County sheriff's office to serve a search warrant for the home, but both agencies were unavailable, Dwyer said. As a result, San Jose police drove tactical vehicles to the scene. Neighbors said they had seen San Jose police at the scene, calling out to someone in the home to surrender. But after storming the home and firing tear gas at about 8 p.m. Saturday, police came up empty-handed and left. The occupants of the home "are new to the area or they're new to the house" after moving in several months ago, said Noelia Trelles, whose sister-in-law lives next door. "I think we live in a pretty crazy world, but it's still crazy that it's happening in the neighborhood," Trelles said. Ruiz and Tausan were among thousands of Hells Angels members who attended a funeral for Jeffrey Pettigrew, president of the San Jose chapter of the motorcycle club, at the Oak Hill Funeral Home and Memorial Park on Curtner Avenue. After the shooting, Ruiz, 38, of San Jose disappeared and one or more people tampered with the crime scene, washing away bloodstains and removing evidence of the shooting, police said. Police found Ruiz's motorcycle at the funeral, Lt. Alan Cavallo said. Ruiz has not come to claim it. Authorities initially speculated that it was possible Ruiz had been killed and possibly buried along with Pettigrew. Investigators obtained a search warrant to dig up Pettigrew's grave, but Ruiz's remains were not found, Cavallo said. But now investigators say they have proof that Ruiz is alive and "actively evading law enforcement," Dwyer said. Ruiz is believed to have two black eyes "and other facial injuries consistent with being in a fight," Dwyer said. Police said Ruiz is in the company of Christel Renee Trujillo, 42, also known as Christel Renee Ferguson, and that her life "is now in danger." The two are possibly traveling in a gold or pewter Chevrolet Suburban. No year of the vehicle or license plate number was available. Ruiz has family and associates in Arizona and New York and may try to contact them, Dwyer said. Police said Pettigrew was shot and killed Sept. 23 by Ernesto Manuel Gonzalez, an alleged member of the rival Vagos motorcycle gang, at John Ascuaga's Nugget casino in Sparks, Nev. Gonzalez, 53, of San Jose was arrested by a UCSF police officer in San Francisco six days later. Tausan and the manager of the Pink Poodle, a strip club west of San Jose, were tried for murder in 1999 in the beating death of a club customer two years earlier. They were acquitted on grounds of self-defense.

The slain Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi secretly spirited out of Libya and invested overseas more than $200 billion

2011-10-22T07:37:00.001+01:00

The slain Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi secretly spirited out of Libya and invested overseas more than $200 billion -- double the amount that Western governments previously had suspected, The Los Angeles Times reported late Friday. Citing unnamed senior Libyan officials, the newspaper said US administration officials were stunned last spring when they found $37 billion in Libyan regime accounts and investments in the United States. They quickly froze the assets before Kadhafi or his aides could move them, the report said. Governments in France, Italy, England and Germany seized control of another $30 billion or so. Earlier, investigators estimated that Kadhafi had stashed perhaps another $30 billion elsewhere in the world, for a total of about $100 billion, the paper noted. But subsequent investigations by US, European and Libyan authorities determined that Kadhafi secretly sent tens of billions more abroad over the years and made sometimes lucrative investments in nearly every major country, including much of the Middle East and Southeast Asia, The Times said. Most of the money was under the name of government institutions such as the Central Bank of Libya, the Libyan Investment Authority, the Libyan Foreign Bank, the Libyan National Oil Corporation and the Libya African Investment Portfolio, the paper pointed out. But investigators said Kadhafi and his family members could access any of the money if they chose to, the report said. The new $200 billion figure is about double the prewar annual economic output of Libya, The Times noted. Kadhafi, who lorded over the oil-rich North African nation for 42 years, met a violent end on Thursday after a NATO air attack hit a convoy, in which he was trying to escape from his hometown of Sirte. He survived the air strike but was apparently captured and killed after a shootout between his supporters and new regime fighters.

Tony Mokbel supergrass set for $1 million reward

2011-10-16T21:09:00.001+01:00

THE drug dealer who dobbed in crime boss Tony Mokbel is likely to be paid Victoria's first $1 million reward. He has already escaped being charged over his prominent role in Mokbel's gang, which included helping Mokbel organise a false passport to flee Australia. But veteran underworld figure Billy Longley yesterday warned the "grass" who fingered Mokbel would have to keep looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life. "A lot of people have gone to jail because of him, including Mokbel," Mr Longley said. "Such people have long memories and will want revenge." The previous biggest amount paid out by Victoria Police was a $100,000 reward in 1991. There are nine other $1 million rewards up for grabs at present. The police informer in the Mokbel case, codenamed 3030, was a key member of Mokbel's drug syndicate, known as The Company, as well as a drug user. Fat Tony doomed by his greed for speed Fat Tony doomed by his greed for speed Herald Sun, 1 hour ago Fat Tony drops legal bid for freedom Courier Mail, 1 day ago Fight to seize Mokbel's drug millions Herald Sun, 4 Oct 2011 Prosecutors set sights on Mokbel millions Courier Mail, 4 Oct 2011 Man jailed for helping Mokbel escape Herald Sun, 5 Sep 2011 He turned on Mokbel, and his other fellow gang members, soon after Victoria Police offered the $1 million bounty to find Mokbel in April 2007. Purana gangland killing taskforce detectives persuaded 3030 to work for them inside The Company. Information provided by 3030 resulted in multiple arrests of members of The Company, including Mokbel in Greece on June 5, 2007. The informer is a significant step closer to being paid the $1 million, as Mokbel is due in court tomorrow for a pre-sentence hearing. Mokbel pleaded guilty in April to drug charges relating to his masterminding The Company while on the run in Victoria and Greece. A Victoria Police spokesman yesterday confirmed the process of deciding on the reward would begin at the end of a 28-day appeal period after Mokbel's sentencing. Supreme Court judge Justice Betty King already has described 3030's assistance to police as "invaluable". And police have paid tribute to 3030, saying he played a vital role in helping them to locate and arrest Mokbel. Apart from providing telephone numbers so police could bug phones of Company members, including Mokbel's, 3030 helped identify people in The Company's business as well as the houses, hotels and storages they were using. Information provided to Purana by 3030 enabled officers to put recording and listening devices in The Company's cars, houses and storages, as well as bug phones. He also assisted police in introducing undercover operatives into The Company. With 3030's co-operation, Purana detectives were able to find Mokbel and arrest nine of The Company gang members in Melbourne on the same day Mokbel was picked up in Greece. Raids on Victorian properties associated with The Company led to the seizure of amphetamines, cocaine, precursor chemicals used to make amphetamines, drug-making equipment valued at more than $500,000, and almost $800,000 in cash. The informer also helped police to identify properties The Company bought with drug money, which enabled their seizure. Lawyers acting for Joseph Mansour, one of The Company members convicted as a result of 3030 turning police informer, queried the lack of charges against 3030. In jailing Mansour for 10 years, Justice King said: "Your counsel referred to the fact 3030 is not charged in respect of these activities, which is not surprising, as a number of these activities that he undertook were at the behest of the police to gather evidence. "His assistance in identifying and breaking this very large conspiracy could be described as invaluable."

top bike-club enforcer nicknamed "Mr. 187'' after the state penal code number for murder was gunned down Saturday in front of stunned spectators.

2011-10-16T18:50:00.001+01:00

Despite a heavy police presence at a Hells Angels funeral Saturday, a top bike-club enforcer nicknamed "Mr. 187'' after the state penal code number for murder was gunned down Saturday in front of stunned spectators. Multiple sources told this newspaper the victim was Steve Tausan, a notorious sergeant-at-arms for the Santa Cruz chapter of the club suspected of killing another biker years ago. Sources said the incident Saturday was an inter-club squabble set off when Tausan punched a fellow biker and the biker retaliated by shooting him. A photographer for this newspaper saw other Hells Angels jump the shooter. Police declined to comment, saying only that there had been a shooting at the Oak Hill Cemetery. The funeral at the cemetery was for fellow Hells Angel Jethro Pettigrew, president of the San Jose chapter of the club, who was shot in a Sparks, Nev., casino by a member of the rival Vagos club. Townsend told a reporter that shortly after Pettigrew was killed that he had received death threats. Police and Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office are now guarding the Hells Angels headquarters in San Jose, as well as other locations where bikers gather.

Hells Angels and Bandidos club members ''own nightspots in Thailand tourist centres that have become popular haunts for bikies worldwide

2011-10-16T18:42:00.001+01:00

Australian bikies with dubious reputations are now infiltrating Thailand and gang members have opened businesses on Phuket, reports an Australian newspaper. Hells Angels and Bandidos club members ''own nightspots in Thailand tourist centres that have become popular haunts for bikies worldwide,'' reports the Courier-Mail newspaper, which is based in the northern Australian state of Queensland. Members of the Bandidos - who acquired four new chapters in Indonesia during ''Bandidos Bali Bike Week'' earlier this year - are looking to set up business as far afield as Japan, a Queensland police source told the newspaper. Thailand was significant as a source of chemicals for drug manufacture and trafficking and scrutiny of the travels of Gold Coast bikies' travel would show ''a lot of trips'' to the country, the officer said. ''A lot of them are looking into Thailand - it gives them the opportunity to source pharmaceuticals. Hells Angels and Bandidos have got premises in Thailand. ''Of course, the Finks [another prominent bikie club] can't be left behind and they're looking too.'' The newspaper names one bar in Patong and another on Koh Samui as having been purchased by bikies with Hells Angels connections. The newspaper report on bikie connections on Phuket and in Asia is part of a series on the activities of Australian gangs at home and overseas. It's titled 'Bikie Inc, Organised Crime on the Glitter Strip.' Some have been involved in alleged property scams on Phuket, the report says. Danish, British and Norwegian bikie gang members have also been connected to the activities of Australian gang members, the report adds. Phuket expat motorcycle riders have always distanced themselves from gang activities and drugs and drawn the distinction between bikers and ''bikies.''

Hells Angel member killed at San Jose funeral for fellow biker

2011-10-16T18:39:00.001+01:00

Hells Angels member was fatally shot Saturday at the San Jose funeral for a fellow biker who was killed last month at a Nevada casino, police said. The victim, who police have not identified, was shot shortly before 1 p.m. and taken to a hospital where he died about an hour later, said San Jose police spokesman Jose Garcia. No suspect has been arrested and the shooting remains under investigation. The shooting occurred at the funeral for Jeffrey Pettigrew, 51, president of the San Jose chapter of the Hells Angels, authorities said. The service was held at the Oak Hill Funeral Home & Memorial Park and drew an estimated 4,000 people. Pettigrew was attending a motorcycle festival last month when he was shot four times in the back by a member of the rival Vagos motorcycle gang during a brawl at a casino in Sparks, Nev. Ernesto Manuel Gonzalez of San Jose was arrested on suspicion of murder. Ten Vagos members were arrested earlier this month on suspicion of drug trafficking and a rash of violence during law enforcement raids throughout the Inland Empire. Garcia said he couldn't speculate whether the San Jose shooting was related to rivalries between the motorcycle gangs. Anticipating a large turnout, police were in the area around the cemetery as a precaution, patrolling and helping with traffic. Garcia declined to say whether police were at the funeral. "We had no credible information suggesting there would be violence," he said.

RBS staff told to pay for their own Christmas party

2011-10-16T18:12:00.001+01:00

Another day, another downgrade. Reduced to surviving on two pints of lager and pack of crisps at recent Christmas parties, misery was heaped on Royal Bank of Scotland's highly-paid investment bankers on Friday as they were told that they would have to fund this year's bash entirely out of their own pocket.

HMRC clamps down on Swiss account holders

2011-10-16T18:01:00.001+01:00

6,000 Britons who hold money in the Swiss arm of HSBC will soon receive a letter telling them that they need to own up to unpaid tax. The bank is acting on information received last year under a tax treaty. This revealed that more than 6,000 individuals, companies, trusts and other bodies held accounts and investments with HSBC Geneva. HMRC has already begun criminal and serious fraud investigations into more than 500 individuals and organisations holding these accounts. HMRC will shortly be writing to those who have not yet come forward, or are not under investigation. They will be offered a chance to contact HMRC and disclose all their tax liabilities, HMRC said. Fines of up to 200 per cent of any tax may, in certain circumstances, be imposed on people not coming forwards during this window for disclosure. "This is not an amnesty. There are no special rates of penalty or interest for those who come forward voluntarily," said HMRC's Dave Hartnett. "This is an opportunity for those who have made errors in past returns to correct them. The net is closing on offshore evaders. Don't wait for HMRC to contact you."

Long Island man convicted in a $100 million mortgage-fraud scam has been charged with trying to orchestrate a murder-for-hire plot targeting a former associate who testified against him

2011-10-06T23:16:00.001+01:00

Long Island man convicted in a $100 million mortgage-fraud scam has been charged with trying to orchestrate a murder-for-hire plot targeting a former associate who testified against him, people briefed on the investigation said.

Aaron Hand, the 39-year-old former president of AFG Financial Group, allegedly told an undercover law-enforcement agent posing as a hit man that he didn't want the "rat" to get away with helping send him to prison, according to people briefed on the investigation.

Mr. Hand, speaking to the agent in a visiting room at the maximum-security Coxsackie Correctional Facility in upstate New York, allegedly offered to pay $2,000 for the witness to be killed and said he regretted he couldn't be present.

Enlarge Image

Associated Press

Aaron Hand in July 2009.

Mr. Hand allegedly told the agent in a conversation that was taped at the prison that he wished he could be present when the witness was killed to "watch him suffer," according to a person briefed on the matter.

An indictment against Mr. Hand is scheduled to be announced Thursday by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., whose office conducted the investigation. Mr. Hand is expected to be brought into court to be arraigned on charges of attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder, carrying a maximum potential sentence of 25 years to life, the people said.

Mr. Hand was at Rikers Island on Wednesday and couldn't be reached for comment. A lawyer who represented him at his trial in the mortgage-fraud case said he was unaware of the new charges and declined to comment.

Mr. Hand, who lived on Long Island and whose company was based in Garden City, was convicted in July 2010 of multiple charges in connection with a scheme to defraud mortgage lenders by staging sham real-estate closings with straw buyers, crooked lawyers and phony appraisals. At least 27 people were convicted or pleaded guilty to participating in the scheme, prosecutors have said.

Although it is unusual for white-collar defendants to be accused of violent crime, it isn't unprecedented.

In 2000, Stuart Winkler, a former executive at A.S. Goldmen & Co. facing charges in a boiler-room case, was accused of contacting a hit man from jail. Mr. Winkler wanted to kill New York State Supreme Court Justice Leslie Crocker Snyder, who was overseeing his case, prosecutors said at the time. He was convicted in the white-collar case and of conspiracy to commit murder, and is still in prison.

The new investigation of Mr. Hand began in August, after Mr. Vance's office received a tip that he had expressed interest in arranging a hit on a former associate to whom he was close, one of several who cooperated with prosecutors and testified at his trial, according to people briefed in the investigation.

An investigator for the district attorney's office traveled to the Coxsackie prison on Aug. 26 as a purported assassin, wearing a recording device as he met with Mr. Hand, the people briefed on the investigation said. Mr. Hand allegedly complained about the relatively minor criminal charges faced by his associate, who didn't serve any jail time, and said he wanted him killed.

He allegedly gave the investigator the target's address, instructing him not to leave any DNA behind and to dispose of the body. Mr. Hand also allegedly told him to kill the witness's wife and children if they were home and to take whatever he found inside as compensation, the people said. Before he left, Mr. Hand allegedly agreed to pay the supposed hit man $500 as a down payment and to buy a gun.

Over the next few weeks, according to the people briefed on the investigation, Mr. Hand allegedly arranged for a payment, ultimately in the amount of $150, telling people outside the prison that he needed to bribe a guard so he wouldn't be locked up in a more restrictive setting. A contact of Mr. Hand delivered the money to the undercover officer on Sept 10 at a diner on the East Side of Manhattan, the people briefed on the investigation said.

On Sept. 15, the investigator went back to the prison to see Mr. Hand again. Mr. Hand allegedly said he wanted to go ahead with the killing, but had decided it would be better to wait until the witness left his home and drove to Brooklyn. He allegedly told the undercover officer to make it look like a gang killing and said he would get him $2,000 sometime later as payment, according to the people briefed on the investigation.

Self-styled ‘Lord’ Davenport - known as 'Fast Eddie' - masterminded an ‘advanced fee fraud’ scheme that ripped off scores of businesses.

2011-10-06T14:52:00.001+01:00

Davenport set up Gresham Ltd in 2005 and pretended it was a respectable business with 50 years of sourcing huge commercial loans. He charged companies advance fees for loans of up to £157million but the money never materialised.

The scam conned at least 51 victims and from 2007 to 2009 Gresham Ltd received more than £4.5million from unsuspecting clients, the court heard.

‘To outward appearances it was long-established, wealthy and prestigious,’ said Simon Mayo QC, for the prosecution. ‘It was essentially worthless. Its only business was fraud.’

The businessman had many high-profile friends including socialite Tamara Beckwith (right) (Picture: Rex Features)

Davenport owns Sierra Leone’s former high commission at Portland Place, London, used in The King’s Speech – and a gay porn film.

The 45-year-old is pictured on his website with celebrities including Cowell and Hugh Grant, Knightley, Beckham and Mick Jagger.

He boasted of 'beautiful homes and a collection of sports cars which would make any man jealous including a Ferrari 360 Spider, an Aston Martin Virage Volante, a Rolls-Royce Phantom and a Lamborghini'.

Davenport was banned last year from using his home for activities including a ‘porn disco’, sex party and pole-dancing lessons.

He was jailed last month for seven years and eight months with accomplice Peter Riley, 64, of Brentwood, Essex. They were convicted of conspiracy to defraud. Borge Andersen, 66, of South Kensington, got 39 months for the crime.

Con victim: Royal dress designer Elizabeth Emanuel was among those who paid money to Davenport (Picture: PA)

According to Gresham Ltd accounts, Andersen received £159,564 from the fraud, Riley £695,407 and Davenport £773,000. A total of £349,025 vanished, the court heard.

The convictions at Southwark crown court can be revealed because a reporting order was lifted yesterday.

Princess Diana's wedding dress designer Elizabeth Emanuel - who had been one of Davenport's victims - welcomed his sentence.

The 58-year-old turned to him in 2008 in the hope of raising £1m for her business, Art Of Being, and was asked to pay £20,000 - later reduced to £5,000 - for his company to complete due diligence.

'I think justice has been served,' she said.

'The amount I lost was nothing compared to everybody else but he was happy to take my £5,000. It sums up the sort of person he is.'

Rio hit with £500k bill after losing court battle

2011-09-29T18:31:00.001+01:00

The England and Manchester United star will now be saddled with paying the estimated £500,000 legal bills incurred by the Sunday Mirror in defence of the lawsuit.

Ferdinand sued the newspaper for misuse of private information after they published details of his 13-year relationship with interior designer Carly Storey, who accepted £16,000 for telling the tale of her liaisons with the defender.

But Mr Justice Nicol dismissed the case at London's high court on Thursday, and refused Ferdinand's legal team permission to appeal.

"Overall, in my judgment, the balancing exercise favours the defendant's right of freedom of expression over the claimant's right of privacy," he said.

The judge was not swayed by Ferdinand's claims that he had not tried to meet Storey after being made England captain, despite claims in the newspaper that he had snuck Storey into the team hotel.

"I did not find this answer persuasive. In his evidence the claimant said that (Fabio) Capello had told him to be professional, not only on the pitch but 'around the hotel'," the judge said.

"In the past, the Claimant (Ferdinand) had not behaved in a professional manner around the hotels into which he had tried to sneak Ms Storey.

"Whether or not he had done that in the few weeks since he had been made the permanent captain of England, his relative recent past failings could legitimately be used to call into question his suitability for the role."

Former England captain Ferdinand, who has three children with wife Rebecca, had told the judge at an earlier hearing that, "I do not see why I should not be entitled to a private life just because I am a famous footballer."

Sunday Mirror editor Tina Weaver hailed the judge's decision.

"The Sunday Mirror is very pleased that the court has rejected Rio Ferdinand's privacy claim," she said.

"The judge found that there was a justified public interest in reporting the off-pitch behaviour of the then England captain and discussion of his suitability for such an important and ambassadorial role representing the country.

"We are pleased the judge ruled that Mr Ferdinand had perpetuated a misleading public image and the Sunday Mirror was entitled to correct this impression.

"There has never been greater scrutiny of the media than now, and we applaud this ruling in recognising the important role a free press has to play in a democratic society."

Paramedics Who Tried To Save Singer's Life Give Evidence

2011-09-29T18:18:00.001+01:00

Alberto Alvarez was in charge of back stage during Jackson's final rehearsal on June 24, 2009. He described Jackson as "happy and in good spirits" during the performance. "He was doing very well for the most part," he told the Los Angeles court. He explained that he later drove Jackson back to his rented Holmby Hills home and saw Dr Murray's car parked there. He said the last time he saw Jackson alive was when he said "good night" to the singer. Mr Alvarez was the first person who went into Jackson's bedroom after Dr Murray telephoned for help as he was trying to resuscitate the singer. He said Jackson was lying on his back, with his hands extended out to his side, and his eyes and mouth open. "When I came into the room, Dr Murray said 'Alberto, hurry, we have to get to hospital, we have to get an ambulance'." Jackson's logistics director Alberto Alvarez He then described how Jackson's children Paris and Prince entered the room behind him. "Paris screamed out 'Daddy' and she was crying. "Dr Murray said to me 'Don't let them see their dad like this see'. "I ushered the children out and told them 'Don't worry, we will take care of it, everything is going to be OK'." Mr Alvarez asked what had happened, to which Dr Murray replied: "He had a bad reaction". Two paramedics who tried to save Jackson's life are also due to give evidence on day three of the trial. Martin Blount and Richard Senneff are expected to say that Jackson already appeared to be dead when they arrived at his home on June 25, 2009. The court will also hear from another key witness - Jackson's personal chef Kai Chase. Sky's US correspondent Greg Milam, who is at the court, said: "There are fewer demonstrators, fans of Michael Jackson, and supporters of Dr Murray here today - but they are still being very vocal in their support of both sides in the case." On Wednesday, Jackson's security chief revealed how the star's children crumpled in shock, as they saw their apparently dead father being given heart massage in his bedroom. The court also heard that Dr Conrad Murray, accused of involuntary manslaughter over Jackson's death two years ago, asked aides if any of them knew how to do cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). "Paris was on the ground balled up crying, and Prince was standing there, and he just had a real shocked, you know just slowly crying type of look on his face," bodyguard Faheem Muhammad, referring to two of Jackson's three children, said. "I went and gathered them together, and I kind of talked to them for a second, got the nanny... and we walked downstairs and put them in a different location," he said. He was describing the scene after he was called up to the master bedroom of Jackson's rented Los Angeles mansion where the star died after an overdose of a powerful sedative. The defence team for the doctor insists Jackson self-administered other sedatives, prompting the overdose while his physician was outside the bedroom. Dr Murray, 58, faces up to four years in jail if convicted of involuntary manslaughter for administering the overdose of Propofol.

Raids in 7 countries in $200M investment fraud

2011-09-29T18:11:00.001+01:00

Dutch authorities say raids have been conducted in seven countries in connection with an alleged $200 million investment fraud scheme, and four men have been arrested. The country's financial crime prosecutors say they suspect hundreds of investors were conned into fraudulent investments in U.S. life insurance policies by a firm called Quality Investments BV. Prosecutors said Wednesday four Dutch men have been arrested, two in the Netherlands and one each in Switzerland and Turkey. Raids were also conducted in Spain, Dubai, England and the United States, in which millions of euros in assets were seized in hopes of recovering some money for duped investors.

UBS CEO Gruebel resigns over rogue trading loss

2011-09-24T21:00:00.001+01:00

UBS chief executive Oswald Gruebel has resigned over a $2.3 billion loss caused by rogue trading at its investment division, which is to be restructured now to prevent similar incidents in future, the Swiss bank said Saturday. Gruebel, who had come under heavy pressure from shareholders over the scandal, said he hoped his resignation would allow the bank to restore its reputation in the eyes of clients and investors. Article Controls EMAIL REPRINT NEWSLETTER SHARE "As CEO, I bear full responsibility for what occurs at UBS ( UBS - news - people )," he said in a memo to staff. "From my first day on the job I placed the reputation of the bank above all else. That is why I want to and must act according to my convictions." UBS Europe chief Sergio P. Ermotti will take over immediately as interim chief executive until Gruebel's replacement is appointed. Gruebel's departure caps 10 days of speculation over his future following the bank's announcement that a single London-based trader had evaded internal control systems and gambled away $2.3 billion. The trader, 31-year-old Kweku Adoboli, was arrested Sept. 15 and charged with fraud and false accounting. A judge ordered him Thursday to be held in jail until a hearing next month.

FALKLANDS war veteran went on a lavish £1million spending spree after ripping off two gangsters

2011-09-24T11:31:00.001+01:00

FALKLANDS war veteran went on a lavish £1million spending spree after ripping off two gangsters. Ex-Royal Navy officer Dean Priestley had been asked by the crooks to drive the used notes across the Channel to Spain. But instead of sticking to the plan the 47-year-old went on the run and set about leading a life of luxury for six months. Advertisement >> Priestley splashed out on holidays, homes, cars, boats and jewellery as he hid from the villains who put out a hit on him. A court heard the furious crooks, known only as Mull and Steve, vowed to spend £5million hunting him down. The extraordinary case emerged as wife Derry, 48, was convicted of conspiracy to launder money. Her husband was jailed for three and a half years earlier this year after pleading guilty to conspiring to convert criminal property. Detective Constable Graham Duncan said: “This is the first case I have come across in 25 years of someone who allegedly stole £1million from criminals and has not given it back. “Dean Priestley was spending money like it was going out of fashion. He has shown a brass neck to the criminals he stole money from and shown no remorse.” Dad-of-two Priestley fled his £900,000 home in a water mill in Bielby, East Yorks, after stealing the cash. He called his wife to say: “I’ve done something really bad. I’m going to have to stay away for a long time.” He opened bank accounts in his privately-educated son’s names before depositing thousands of pounds in stolen cash. Priestley quickly splashed out on a luxury £230,000 Sealine S48 motor cruiser on Lake Windermere to hide from the villains. He also bought a £162,000 stone cottage for son Nathan, a semi-pro rugby player, in Wilsden, Bradford. He blew £20,000 on a Land Rover Defender 90 to drive between Lake District marinas and two £23,000 Audi A3s for cash from showroom dealers. He soon traded in one of the Audis, swapping it for a £32,000 black BMW 630 cabriolet picked out by his wife. At the time, Priestley was also being hunted by the police as he was wanted for extradition to France after being convicted in his absence of cannabis smuggling in his lorry. Wife Derry told Hull crown court she was threatened by two men from Manchester’s underworld to tell them where her husband was. She was told to take his birth and medical certificates to them just before they attacked his two sons with spray paint and an iron bar at their home. She said: “I got very depressed and suicidal. I was very low for a long time. I fled my home.” She remained in contact with her husband by mobile phone and made repeated visits to the Lake District to see him. The court heard Priestley bought a £5,000 diamond and 18 carat gold pendant from a jeweller for his wife’s birthday. He then paid for holidays to Spain, Amsterdam and a £4,000 trip to Australia. He even roped in his nephews, paying them £1,000 for every £10,000 they could put into banks. Mrs Priestley stopped using her Range Rover after finding a tracking device put on it by the Manchester criminals. It was Mrs Priestley’s call to the police saying the gangsters had told her that her husband had stolen £1million which started the investigation. Twice-married Mrs Priestley denied joining him when he ran up credit card bills on shopping trips. Prosecutor Timothy Capstick said her husband’s empire came crashing down when he was arrested by police coming out of a Leeds Hotel. They knew criminals had put a price on his head. The jury took less than 60 minutes to find Derry Priestley guilty. As well as the money laundering charge, she was also convicted of attempting to convert criminal property and converting criminal property. She will be sentenced at a later date. Her luxury home in Bielby, which the family had a mortgage on, has since been repossessed and sold on. Dean Priestley along with sons James, 23, Nathan, 22, and nephews Simon Taylor, 35, and Christopher Taylor, 32, all pleaded guilty to conspiring to convert criminal property before the start of their trial in March. His sons and nephews got suspended prison sentences. Priestley now faces an assets recovery hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act to seize any criminal cash he has left.

Spain Examines Long Hidden Swiss Account

2011-09-21T17:01:00.001+01:00

Emilio Botín is a billionaire Spanish banker renowned for running a tight ship. He asks that his top credit officers at Santander — one of Europe’s largest banks — make a trek to his vacation home each summer to report on loan exposures. And he queries the head of his charitable foundation, euro for euro, on its smallest donations. Enlarge This Image Daniel Ochoa De Olza/Associated Press A Spanish court is investigating whether the family of Emilio Botín, the head of Banco Santander, paid too little taxes. Add to Portfolio HSBC Holdings PLC Barclays PLC Go to your Portfolio » Enlarge This Image Nacho Cubero/Reuters Emilio Botín is head of Banco Santander, which is based in Madrid. Readers’ Comments Share your thoughts. Post a Comment » Read All Comments (30) » Yet, there is one not-so-small matter that Mr. Botín (pronounced bo-TEEN) has failed to keep tabs on: a Swiss bank account secretly opened long ago by his father that grew to such a size that when Spanish authorities discovered its existence last year, Mr. Botín and other family members paid 200 million euros (about $273 million currently) in taxes to avoid tax evasion charges. At the request of tax fraud inspectors, a Spanish national court is investigating whether the payment is enough, given the amount that was stashed abroad; tax experts in Spain say that the account could reach two billion euros. The court has also said that officials need more time to sift through the blizzard of documents that the family submitted and will consider whether a criminal charge of document fraud should be brought. A lawyer for the Botíns, Jesús Remón, said the family was cooperating with the investigation and was “fully in compliance with its tax obligations following their voluntary filing” last year. He added that no family member had been charged with wrongdoing. Mr. Botín’s tax problems come as debate intensifies over whether struggling governments should demand more tax revenue from the rich. On Monday, President Obama called to end some tax breaks for the wealthiest taxpayers in the United States. Last Friday, the Spanish government reintroduced a wealth tax that it had abolished three years earlier, hoping to collect an estimated 1.08 billion euros from taxpayers with more than 700,000 euros in declared assets. Spain’s wealthiest have so far not publicly endorsed calls for higher taxes, and Mr. Botín on Friday told reporters that “it seems to me very bad to reintroduce” the wealth tax. More so than in other European countries, where bankers are largely anonymous figures, Mr. Botín holds sway in Spain. Although he avoids social events and his public utterances are few, his influence is seen as wide-ranging. And he has been able to retain control of Santander despite his family’s controlling just 2 percent of its shares. Neither the judiciary nor the family has provided details about how much money the Swiss bank account contained or how the amount grew over time. Nor would Mr. Remón, the lawyer, comment on whether Mr. Botín had been aware of the account. What is known is that Mr. Botín’s father, also called Emilio, left Spain with part of his wealth in late 1936, after the start of the Spanish Civil War, fearing, like many other Spaniards, what might come. The elder Mr. Botín spent a few months in London before moving to Basel, Switzerland, and eventually returning to Spain to resume leadership of the bank that he had run since 1933. But while he returned to Spain, the money he salted away in Switzerland did not. The senior Botín died in 1993. Last year, the French government passed on to Spain data that it had obtained from Hervé Falciani, a former employee in HSBC’s Swiss subsidiary, naming almost 600 Spanish holders of secret bank accounts. Among those was one belonging to the estate of Mr. Botín’s father. In his opening summary, the judge in charge of the case, Fernando Andreu, highlighted “the complexity of the hereditary structures” of trusts, foundations and other companies set up to oversee the account. The closest he came to explaining what was in the account was to say that it also included a 12 percent stake in Bankinter, a midsize bank in which Jaime Botín, Emilio’s brother, is a leading shareholder. That holding, at current stock market value, would be worth about $310 million.

Ms Moran, 56, looked a shadow of her former self as she arrived to face 21 charges at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in central London.

2011-09-19T19:14:00.001+01:00

One count alleges that she falsely claimed £22,500 for dry rot on a home in Southampton more than 100 miles from her constituency.

The former Labour member for Luton South sobbed throughout the brief hearing and was passed a tissue by a court official.

No plea was entered and jurisdiction in the case was declined by District Judge Daphne Wickham on the grounds of the nature and complexity of the charges and sums involved.

They allegations consist of 15 counts of false accounting and six of forgery.

Moran, of Ivy Road, St Denys, Southampton, was remanded on unconditional bail to appear at London’s Southwark Crown Court on October 28 for a plea and case management hearing.

The former politician spoke only briefly, in a faltering voice, to confirm her name and date of birth.

Moran looked almost unrecognisable as she arrived at court this morning with a dark grey beret over her head, wearing glasses, and clutching a handkerchief to her mouth.

The auburn tresses and bright clothes seen in previous photographs were replaced by a sober dark suit and blonde hair.

In court she continued to sob into a handkerchief as she waited for the hearing to start.

The criminal probe into Moran began after an investigation by The Daily Telegraph.

Margaret Moran in May 2009 and arriving at Westminster Magistrates Court today (PA/NICHOLAS RAZZELL)

UBS raises rogue equity trade losses to $2.3 billion

2011-09-18T19:36:00.001+01:00

Swiss bank UBS on Sunday increased the amount it said it had lost on rogue equity trades to $2.3 billion and alleged a trader concealed his risky deals by creating fictitious hedging positions in internal systems. UBS stunned markets on Thursday when it announced unauthorised trades had lost it some $2 billion. London trader Kweku Adoboli was charged on Friday with fraud and false accounting dating back to 2008. "The loss resulted from unauthorised speculative trading in various S&P 500, DAX, and EuroStoxx index futures over the last three months," UBS said in a brief statement. "The loss arising from this matter is $2.3 billion. As previously stated, no client positions were affected." Global stock markets have been extremely volatile in recent months, plunging on concerns over euro zone and U.S. debt crises and then rebounding on hopes for their resolution. The loss is a disaster for the reputation of Switzerland's biggest bank, which had just started to recover after it almost collapsed during the financial crisis and faced a damaging U.S. investigation into aiding wealthy Americans to dodge taxes. "Loss even more. Reads like they're making excuses," said Helvea analyst Peter Thorne of the UBS statement. The new scandal has prompted calls for its top managers to step down and for its investment bank to be split into a separate unit from its core wealth management business. Chief Executive Oswald Gruebel, who was brought out of retirement in 2009 to turn the bank around, was quoted in a newspaper on Sunday as saying he is not considering quitting over the crisis, but said it was up to the board to decide. In a memo to staff on Sunday, he said: "Ultimately, the buck stops with me. I and the rest of senior management are responsible for dealing with wrongdoing." Swiss newspapers quoted unnamed insiders as saying the UBS board and important shareholders such as the Singapore sovereign wealth fund were still backing Gruebel, with immediate changes at the top the last thing the bank needed. Gruebel is widely expected to present plans to drastically cut back the investment bank at an investor day in November. INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION The bank, whose three keys logo symbolise "confidence, security, discretion," has pulled its "We will not rest" global advertising campaign for now, that was designed by advertising agency Publicis to try to rebuild its image. Meanwhile, UBS client advisers have been writing to customers to reassure them of the underlying financial strength of the bank despite the trading loss, a spokesman said. "That we now suffer this setback at this point in our efforts to improve our reputation is very disappointing. This incident also sets us back somewhat in our capital-building efforts," Gruebel said in his memo. "However, I wish to remind you that our fundamental strengths as a firm remain intact... we remain one of the best capitalized banks in the industry. UBS said its board of directors had set up a committee chaired by independent director David Sidwell, former chief financial officer at Morgan Stanley, to conduct an independent investigation into the trades and the bank's control systems. The bank said it had covered the risk resulting from the unauthorised trades, and its equities business was again operating normally within previously defined risk limits. It said the trader had allegedly concealed the fact his trades violated UBS risk limits by executing fake exchange-traded fund (ETFs) positions. "Following inquiries directed to him by UBS control functions that were reviewing his positions, the trader revealed his unauthorised activity," the bank said. "The positions taken were within the normal business flow of a large global equity trading house as part of a properly hedged portfolio," UBS said. "However, the true magnitude of the risk exposure was distorted because the positions had been offset in our systems with fictitious, forward-settling, cash ETF positions." The Sunday Times cited unnamed insiders saying the trader placed bets worth $10 billion before his losses were detected. ETFs are index funds listed on an exchange and can be traded just like regular stocks. They try to replicate index performances and offer lower costs than actively managed funds, but regulators have warned about risks from some complex ETFs. In the past three months, DAX futures have fallen 22 percent, Eurostoxx 50 futures have dropped 20 percent and S&P 500 futures have dipped 4 percent. The instruments involved in the UBS case are similar to those that Jerome Kerviel, the rogue trader at Societe Generale, traded when he racked up a $6.7 billion loss in unauthorised deals in 2008. Christoph Blocher, vice-president of the right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP) -- the country's biggest -- renewed his calls for a splitting off of the investment bank. "One has to seriously examine a ban on investment banking for commercial banks," he told the SonntagsZeitung, adding his party might team up with the center-left Social Democrats to push for such a move.

'Rogue trader' Kweku Adoboli faces fraud charges dating back to 2008

2011-09-17T02:15:00.001+01:00

tearful Kweku Adoboli, the alleged rogue trader at the centre of a $2bn (£1.3bn) loss at Swiss bank UBS, appeared before magistrates on Friday to be charged with fraud and false accounting dating back to 2008. A clerk at City of London magistrates court handed the 31-year-old Ghanaian a tissue as the 15-minute proceedings began, after which the one-time star trader was led away to remain in custody until a bail hearing on 22 September. Adoboli's charge sheet appeared to allege that he had taken steps to cover loss-making trades as long ago as 2008. A committal hearing was set for 28 October. The timescale of the allegations will raise questions about risk management procedures at the bank, put intense pressure on the chief executive, Oswald Grübel, and fuel calls from some Swiss politicians for the bank to exit its investment banking business, putting thousands of jobs at risk in the City. Many UBS bankers already fear for their year-end bonuses. Smiling at times, Adoboli spoke only to confirm his name, address and date of birth, while the Swiss bank refused to add anything to the statement it issued on Thursday when it revealed it had called in City of London police at 1am to investigate Adoboli after uncovering "unauthorised trading". British-educated Adoboli – whose passport spells his name as Kwaku – joined UBS in 2006 and was a member of the so-called delta one trading desk, where, among other things, he traded exchange traded funds (ETFs). These complex financial instruments, on which the regulators issued warnings earlier this year, are structured to mimic market movements. His registration with the Financial Services Authority was switched to "inactive" on Friday at the request of the firm – indicating that he is no longer performing that role. Two charges claim that Adoboli falsified records of ETFs between October 2008 and December 2009 and then January 2010 and September 2011. A third charge alleges that he committed fraud between January 2011 and September 2011 while senior trader in global synthetic equities. His lawyers at Kingsley Napley – the law firm that advised Nick Leeson, the rogue trader who broke Barings – did not issue a statement or enter pleas to the charges. His father, John, told Reuters from Tema, Ghana: "I want the world to have an open mind. He should not be sentenced before the trial begins." The former United Nations worker is hoping to fly to the UK this week and is applying for a visa. The City of London police, who arrested Adoboli at his luxury home on the edge of the City at 3.30am on Thursday, said their investigation was continuing, in "close collaboration" with the Financial Services Authority, the Serious Fraud Office and the Crown Prosecution Service. Adoboli's trading activity, by its nature, required him to perform frequent numbers of small trades. One of the last postings on his Facebook page – "need a miracle" – came at around the time the Swiss National Bank intervened to reduce the value of the Swiss franc, which has prompted speculation that this helped expose his losses. The bank, which employs 6,000 staff in London, will now have to pay for a detailed investigation being launched by the FSA and the Swiss regulator, Finma, into the control systems at UBS, the failures that permitted the losses to occur, and details of the unauthorised trading activity. The "comprehensive, independent investigation" will be carried out by one of the big four accountancy firms, although no timescale has been given for when it might be completed. The discovery of the "unauthorised trading" has come at a sensitive time for the City, coinciding as it does with the third anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and coming after calls from politicians in the UK and Switzerland for the break-up of high street banks to separate "casino" investment banking arms. "It shows that investment banking is a high-risk field and it's important that we clearly separate systemically important functions from the rest of the banking business," said Caspar Baader, of the Swiss People's party. Switzerland's Social Democratic party called for "consequences" such as a ban on "proprietary trading" and replacing "egomaniacal, arrogant and irresponsible managers". Even a year after the banking crisis of 2008, during which Swiss taxpayers contributed to a $60bn bailout of UBS, the nation's banking assets totalled SFr3.47tr – nearly seven times the country's gross domestic product. New laws requiring UBS and Credit Suisse to rein in risk and hoard capital to a higher level than required elsewhere in Europe have already been passed in the first chamber of the Swiss parliament and were debated this week in the upper house, known as the national council. Moves to hive off riskier investment banking and private client operations from those banking functions vital to the smooth operation of the Swiss economy also form part of the legislation, but would not be implemented immediately. Banking analysts believe UBS may now have to scale back its investment banking business and axe even more jobs on top of the 3,500 group-wide cuts announced last month in a bid to save £1.5bn – a similar amount to the losses the bank now fears it faces from the alleged "unauthorised trading". "We are making further cuts in our 2012 profit estimates, as we believe that UBS is set to announce a more streamlined investment banking business strategy in November, with certain business units being closed and additional jobs being lost. This is part of the bank's efforts to address the long-term structural issues within the financial services industry," said Christopher Wheeler, an analyst at Mediobanca. Ratings agencies warned of a downgrade of the bank's credit rating. Standard & Poor's placed the bank on its Creditwatch list, citing factors including the "setback to UBS's efforts to rebuild its reputation and demonstrate strengthened risk-management following its weak performance in 2007-2009", when it almost collapsed during the credit crunch.

Man quizzed over UBS rogue trading

2011-09-15T13:09:00.001+01:00

31-year-old man was arrested in London today in connection with allegations of £1.3 billion of rogue trading at Swiss banking giant UBS. The man, named in reports as Kweku Adoboli, was arrested at 3.30am on suspicion of fraud by abuse of position and remains in police custody, sources said. Related articles Notoriety awaits UBS rogue trader French banks scramble to prove they're strong enough for debt crisis Search the news archive for more stories The bank, which has 6,000 staff in the UK, revealed earlier that a trader had lost two billion US dollars (£1.3 billion) on unauthorised trades and warned that the activity could have tipped the bank to a third-quarter loss. Oswald Gruebel, UBS chief executive, called the loss "distressing" and said he "will spare no effort to establish how it happened". According to his LinkedIn profile, Adoboli works as a director in European equity trading and was previously a trade support analyst at UBS. He was a student at the University of Nottingham, according to his profile on the business networking website.

UBS hit by $2bn rogue trade

2011-09-15T12:42:00.001+01:00

Matthew Czepliewicz, an analyst at Collins Stewart, said the unauthorised loss cuts his 2011 earnings-per-share estimate for UBS by about 30pc - "a huge hit". He continued: "A loss of this magnitude will very likely have occurred in the FICC (Fixed Incomes, Currencies and Commodities) division, the very division UBS has been systematically rebuilding after shrinking it by 40pc during the credit crisis. That an unauthorised position of this size could have escaped oversight will renew pressure on management to radically scale back the FICC business, a volatile and capital-intensive business overall." He said that his upgrade of UBS to "buy" from "hold" on September 6 "now looks memorable, to say the least", but added: "As large and embarrassing as the loss is, it may in fact drive a positive strategic overhaul of the company. In the meantime, we await further detail on what went wrong and how management will respond." Andrew Lim, analyst at Espirito Santo, said the loss was manageable at group level at UBS. He added: "The $2 billion loss compares to our current estimate for the (third-quarter) group net earnings of 1.1 billion Swiss francs and (full-year estimated) net earnings of 5.1 billion Swiss francs. "The loss is therefore manageable at the group level, but is obviously not helpful for sentiment and confidence in the bank's risk management following the near-death experience of 2008/9." Fiona Swaffield, analyst at RBC, put the loss in context: "Assuming the loss is not revised at CHF1.7bn this is 3.4% of tangible book value end Q2 2011 and CHF0.35ps. Relative to target Basel III risk weighted assets of CHF300bn this is some 44bp. UBS on the most conservative measure has core T1 of 10% forecast end 2012 Basel III pre this and 13% with phased=in deductions. This would fall to 9.8% and 12.4%, respectively, so still respectable and above CS (8.8% on look through Basel III end 2012) but obviously hardly a positive as its strong capital base relative was an attraction." But she added the real issue over and above the financial impact is the reflection on risk management at UBS: "UBS was seen to have recovered significantly from the credit crisis and to have improved its risk management in the investment bank in spite of its struggle to improve returns. This obviously brings this very much into question." Goldman Sachs analysts Jernei Omahen and Peter Skoog wrote in a note: "This loss has the scope to have a material impact on the perception of UBS' private bank, impacting its future operating trends. "Today's announcement therefore adds to the long list of arguments (and pressure) for a substantially smaller investment bank." Louise Cooper, markets analyst at BGC Partners, said: "According to Bloomberg analysts were forecasting about a SFR 7bn or approx £5bn pre tax profit for UBS for the 2011, therefore a £1.3bn trading loss hits full year earnings by about a third." She added: "The jewel in the crown of UBS is its private banking business, producing consistent, quality earnings. An unexpected trading loss could do significant reputational damage to the bank especially given its track record during the crisis (massive recapitalisation and regulatory fines). Rich people tend not to want to do business with a bank where there are questions over risk control. UBS needs to do a good job in explaining what went wrong and assuring its clients that it will not affect them." Joshua Raymond, chief market strategist at City Index, commented: "Whilst the incredible volatility seen recently in the markets would have likely seen some traders lose and win big, the news that a rogue trader was allowed to stack up losses of $2bn will inevitably send nervous shockwaves through to those investors who have only just returned to the bank after a severe loss of confidence. "The Swiss firm has fought hard in the last few years to restore its credibility from having to be bailed out by the Swiss authorities, suffering a large fine for tax evasion and after it agreed to disclose the accounts of thousands of its clients to US tax authorities."

Iranian mogul at center of ‘unprecedented’ bank fraud claims

2011-09-14T00:23:00.001+01:00

Iranian regulators have blocked the assets a mega-tycoon accused of masterminding a $2.6 billion bank fraud described as the biggest financial corruption scam in Iran’s history, state media reported Monday. The probe also could spill over into Iran’s internal power struggles between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the ruling clerics. The suspect — identified by the hard-line Kayhan newspaper as billionaire mogul Amir-Mansour Aria — is seen as linked to the so-called “deviant current” of Ahmadinejad allies who are facing arrests and crackdowns by Iran’s leadership. 0 Comments Weigh InCorrections? inShare Officials say the alleged fraud involved using forged documents to get credit at one of Iran’s top financial institutions, Bank Saderat, to purchase assets, including state-owned companies including major steel producer Khuzestan Steel Co. A Tehran-based economic analyst, Saeed Leilaz, told The Associated Press that the alleged scheme used the money to conduct “privatization using government money.” The case “indicates a wide corruption within a wide network,” he said. “This is the most unprecedented financial corruption case in the history” of Iran, said Mostafa Pour Mohammadi, head of a judicial investigations unit, after the first details of the case became public last week. The alleged network also included help from bank employees and some suspects have been arrested, Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi told state TV on Monday. He pledged to track down and recover the suspected fraud amount, which authorities estimated reached at least $2.6 billion. Media reports said the suspected fraud began in 2007, but was hiked over the past several months. Last week, Mohammad Jahromi, the CEO of Bank Saderat, revealed that the bank uncovered the alleged fraud in early August and informed security and judicial authorities. Aria’s business empire includes more than 35 companies from mineral water production to a football club and meat imports from Brazil. Calls to his office for comment were not immediately returned Monday. The newspaper Kayhan, which often reflects the views of Iran’s ruling clerics, said Aria had links with Ahmadinejad’s top ally, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei. Conservatives accuse Mashaei and others of trying to challenge the authority of Iran’s theocracy. Dozens of Ahmadinejad allies have been arrested in the past month in crackdowns that have effectively killed the political future for Mashaei, who was seen as a possible successor to Ahmadinejad in 2013. Influential lawmaker Ahmad Tavakkoli said the parliament plans to summon Finance Minister Shamseddin Hosseini and the governor of central bank for questioning on the fraud case. Over the past months, Iranian media have reported major fraud cases in Iranian banking systems and government agencies. Last year, Iranian conservative lawmakers accused Ahmadinejad’s first deputy, Mohammad Reza Rahimi, of signing falsified financial documents. Rahimi denied the charges. In 2008, the country settled its biggest fraud case to date when an appeals court sentenced an Iranian businessman and a former adviser to parliament’s economic commission to 11 years in jail and payment of $145.8 million for corruption.

Livent Executives’ Fraud Convictions Are Upheld

2011-09-14T00:18:00.001+01:00

An appeals court on Tuesday upheld the fraud convictions of the Canadian impresario Garth H. Drabinsky and his former business partner, Myron I. Gottlieb. The two men, who founded and controlled the now-defunct production company Livent and brought shows like “Ragtime” and a revival of “Showboat” to Broadway, were convicted in 2009 of defrauding investors of about 500 million Canadian dollars ($501.2 million) through a complex system of kickbacks and by routinely altering the company’s financial statements. The Court of Appeal for Ontario, however, reduced the two producers’ prison sentences by two years. Mr. Drabinsky now faces a five-year sentence and Mr. Gottlieb a four-year sentence. Both men had been out on bail until Monday. As is customary in Canada, they were then jailed in advance of the appeals court’s ruling. While they may ask the Supreme Court of Canada for a further appeal, they do not have an automatic right to remain out on bail and will probably begin serving their sentences immediately. There is also no assurance that the Supreme Court will hear their challenge. The trial courts found that Mr. Drabinsky and Mr. Gottlieb had deceived investors by routinely reducing the company’s expenses in financial statements to artificially increase Livent’s profits. It also ruled that the two men had circumvented limits imposed by banks on how much money they could personally withdraw from the company. The appeals court said it lowered the sentences because the trial did not produce “any evidence of the actual financial loss occasioned by the frauds.”

Pepper Pike lawyer faces up to 21 years in prison in stock scam

2011-09-11T00:43:00.001+01:00

Pepper Pike attorney James Margulies was sentenced Friday to up to 21 years in prison for his role in a $110 million stock fraud . Judge Gregory Carro also ordered Margulies to make restitution of $7 million, money that prosecutors said he pocketed in the pump-and-dump scheme. The defense later disputed the amount and the judge put the order on hold until a Sept. 26 hearing. Margulies, 47, and other co-conspirators artificially inflated the price of shares in Industrial Enterprises of America; lured in buyers; then dumped their stock, leaving innocent investors holding the bag, according to prosecutors and testimony in a Manhattan courtroom. The trial took place in New York because Industrial Enterprises, which owns a company north of Pittsburgh that makes antifreeze and other car chemicals, was headquartered there. Margulies had been convicted of securities fraud, grand larceny and other crimes in July. He served as finance chief, legal counsel, and for about a year, chief executive of Industrial Enterprises while operating a small law firm he opened on Chagrin Blvd. after several years at Jones Day's Cleveland office. Margulies told the court Friday that he had never heard the term "pump-and-dump" before getting entangled in Industrial Enterprises. He said his actions were well-intended and he didn't realize until too late that he had been drawn into a scam led by the company's former chief executive, John Mazzuto. Margulies, who will lose his law license, said his "own client," Mazzuto, had lied to him, and that he was unable to recognize the deceit. Margulies also said he needed to be at home with his children and that his absence would have a devastating impact on his daughter, a special needs child. The judge said that what Margulies' children needed was their father's love, not a "house decorated like a museum." But Margulies was living lavishly with ill-got funds instead of spending the time with his children, the judge said. Carro described the Industrial Enterprises case as probably the largest and most compelling instance of financial fraud that had ever come before him. Margulies pleaded for probation or at least a sentence no stiffer than what Mazzuto might get because Mazzuto pleaded guilty to plundering Industrial Enterprises and became a prosecution witness. The judge was unmoved, saying the only injustice was that Margulies' "Cleveland cronies" were not sitting exactly where he was. The original indictment of Margulies and Mazzuto included 10 unidentified and unindicted co-conspirators. Testimony suggested that a handful of them are businessmen from the eastern suburbs of Cleveland. Prosecutors say the investigation continues. Assistant District Attorney Garrett Lynch pushed for what he called a "deterrence" sentence to send a message about pervasive penny stock fraud costing U.S. investors "incalculable" dollars. Ira London, an attorney for Margulies, said Lynch's comments showed he was more interested in vengeance than deterrence. "This was a sentence for financial fraud of a defendant with no prior criminal record. Under the circumstances of this case, the sentence was excessive," London said. Margulies plans to appeal. According to trial testimony, Mazzuto and Margulies issued 15 million shares of Industrial Enterprises stock of a type that is supposed to be restricted to employees and consultants. The shares went to friends, relatives, business associates and other "conduits" who funneled the stock into the public market for sale to unsuspecting investors. Part of the scheme involved a stock promoter in Texas whose "programs" to boost the value of penny stocks drew upon a list of 1,000 to 2,000 people who buy obscure, low-value securities to push up their price, in return for fees for engaging in the conspiracy. Prosecutors said the enterprise helped Margulies pursue a high-rolling lifestyle -- paying for a $500,000 vacation club membership, a $350,000 diamond ring for his wife and the amount remaining on the mortgage for his home in Pepper Pike, now listed for sale at $1.5 million. Mazzuto built a $3 million home in Southhampton, N.Y., and a $2.5 million home in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. Prosecutors said Margulies did the legal work to paper over the scam, while Mazzuto, who preceded Margulies as Industrial Enterprises' CEO, was the public face of the company. Mazzuto convinced institutional investors such as the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio and the United Methodist Church to buy millions of the illegally-issued company shares. "He was the architect," Carro told Margulies during Friday's sentencing, "but you were the engineer." Shares in Industrial Enterprises peaked at $8.50 in May 2006 before crashing in 2007 as the fraud came to light, wiping out more than $20 million in investor holdings. The stock trades today for a penny a share. All told, prosecutors said, the executives illegally issued $90 million in securities. Mazzuto, 62, spent seven months in jail, unable to afford bail, before agreeing to testify against Margulies. He is awaiting sentencing.

Citigroup banker faces 30 years in jail after admitting $22m fraud

2011-09-08T09:58:00.001+01:00

Former Citigroup banker Gary Foster has pleaded guilty to embezzling $22m (£14m) from the bank, money he spent on a lavish lifestyle of fast cars and fancy apartments. He faces up to 30 years in jail. The 12-year Citigroup veteran spent hundreds of thousands on cars including a Ferrari and a Maserati Gran Turismo, even though he is legally blind and was unable to drive them. He hired a chauffeur. Foster, 35, was arrested in June at John F Kennedy Airport as he was getting off a flight from Bangkok. He had quit the bank in January before Citi had uncovered his scheme. A former treasury finance department executive, Foster earned $100,000 a year managing internal investments at the bank. Prosecutors said his scheme began in September 2003 and continued into 2011. He wired the money from internal Citi accounts into his personal bank account and covered up his tracks by assigning phony contract or deal numbers to the transfers to make them appear bona fide. According to prosecutors, between July and December 2010, he moved around $14.4m from Citigroup's debt adjustment account and $900,000 from the bank's interest expense account to his personal account in eight separate wire transfers. In a single transfer, on 8 November, he is alleged to have wired himself $3.9m. The US Attorney's Office in Brooklyn has already seized $16m in assets including his cars, an exclusive apartment in Manhattan's Rockefeller Centre, an apartment in Brooklyn and mansion in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. "The defendant violated his employer's trust and stole a stunning amount of money over an extended period of time to finance his personal lifestyle," said US attorney Loretta Lynch. "We will vigorously investigate and prosecute such conduct and seek to recover as much of the proceeds as possible."

Businessman jailed over gang's £17m VAT fraud

2011-09-07T07:36:00.001+01:00

Shabir Anwar Ahmed, 52, from Glasgow, was sentenced to four years in prison after admitting conspiracy to steal taxpayers' money between February and December 2005. He was also disqualified from being a company director for four years for his part in the multi-million pound operation which centred around the mobile phone industry. Ahmed, who was sentenced at London's Southwark Crown Court on Monday, was part of a group that used sham companies to import goods from Europe, including mobile phone accessories, which were exempt from VAT at the point of entry. Once imported, the goods would be sold on a number of times along a "contrived supply chain" at VAT-inclusive prices without VAT being paid to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC). The fraud involved exporting the goods back to Europe and claiming VAT from HMRC for the tax paid on the purchase of the items, making a multi- million pound profit. Three other men were jailed after also pleading guilty to the charge of conspiracy to cheat the public revenue following a five-year investigation by HMRC which uncovered the organised crime gang's activities. Nine men were previously jailed for a total of 21 years in December 2010 and January this year. A further defendant has been charged and is due to stand trial next year. Gary Lampon, assistant director of criminal investigation for HMRC, said: "This was a complex and lengthy investigation, over five years, to unravel this multi-million pound fraud by an organised crime gang. "They used the money to fund extravagant lifestyles at the expense of the British taxpayer. We are determined to pursue and bring to justice the criminals behind this type of fraud."

Bosses of banks saved by taxpayer earn more now than before crisis

2011-09-05T23:49:00.001+01:00

The bosses of Britain’s bailed-out banks are paid more than they were before the credit crunch struck, a damning report reveals today. The chief executives of the country’s basket-case lenders earned an average basic salary of more than £1.1million last year before bonuses or other benefits. Shockingly, this figure is an increase on the £1million average from 2007 – the year that the financial crisis struck, crippling Britain and plunging the country into recession. Despite the fact that they have the job of salvaging the banks propped up with more than £65billion of taxpayers’ money, they are among the best-paid executives in this country. Their average wage is almost more than 40 times that of the country’s average of £26,000 and it dwarfs the £142,500-a-year salary earned by our Prime Minister. When bonuses and other perks are included bank chiefs enjoyed average total earnings of £3.7million last year – The damning findings by the country’s leading pay experts are likely to anger British taxpayers, who are sitting on losses of £34billion in RBS and Lloyds – or £1,300 per household.

Share slump hammers Euro banks

2011-09-05T23:47:00.001+01:00

Stocks in Europe and Italian fixed-income securities were pummelled on concern about the euro zone's debt crisis. The benchmark Stoxx Europe 600 Index ended the day with a 4.1 per cent drop. US and Canadian financial markets were closed for the Labor Day holiday. Financial stocks led the decline in Europe as Deutsche Bank chief Josef Ackermann said profit in the banking sector would be curtailed for years because of the sovereign debt crisis and some banks would likely fail. "Prospects for the financial sector overall ... are rather limited," the CEO of Germany's top bank said on Monday. "The outlook for the future growth of revenues is limited by both the current situation and structurally." Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse Group, Barclays, Societe Generale and Royal Bank of Scotland all shed more than 6.5 per cent, according to Bloomberg News. "Not a great start to the week. There is a lot going on for banks, especially in the light of a low-growth environment and the backdrop in the euro zone not improving," Mike Lenhoff, chief strategist at Brewin Dolphin, told Reuters. Investors also sold euros, buying gold and US dollars instead. The euro dropped 0.7 per cent against the greenback after German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union was defeated in an election in her home state, yet another indication voters are unhappy about her efforts to deal with the European debt crisis and reject plans to use more taxpayer money to help solve the problems of countries including Greece and Ireland. "Merkel's problem is that she fails to generate confidence in her policies and those of her coalition partner," Gero Neugebauer, a political science professor at the Free University in Berlin, told Bloomberg. "It's about the consistency of her statements" on bailouts for indebted euro countries. The US currency strengthened 0.66 per cent against a basket of its major counterparts. Investors are eyeing a German constitutional court ruling on Wednesday on claims that Berlin is breaking German law and European treaties by contributing to bailouts for Greece, Ireland and Portugal, according to Reuters. The court is not expected to rule against the contributions, but may add stipulations for dealing with future requests that will complicate the region's bailout plans. "People are pricing in the risk of European meltdown, rather than the likely outcome," Ian King, head of international equities at Legal & General, told Reuters. Against this backdrop, Group of Seven financial leaders are likely to agree later this week to keep monetary policy loose. The G7's finance ministers and central bankers meet on Friday in Marseilles, France to discuss potential to bolster the slowing global economy. Before then however, central bankers are meeting in Australia, Canada, the UK and Europe and may offer investors more perspective on the global outlook.

Swiss bankers demand respect for law from US tax evasion investigators

2011-09-05T23:44:00.001+01:00

Swiss bankers have rejected another UBS-style tax evasion deal following an ultimatum from the United States last week to turn over the names of more tax cheats. The US has turned up the heat on Switzerland after finding evidence that Credit Suisse and other banks allegedly helped its citizens to break the law by hiding their wealth from the tax authorities. The successful prosecution of UBS two years ago led to a Swiss-US treaty that severely dented Swiss banking secrecy laws by providing the names of nearly 5,000 bank clients. But rather than burying the problem, the success of the deal has encouraged the US to pursue yet more banks – some of whom are rumoured to have illegally given UBS clients safe haven after Switzerland’s largest bank was caught out. The Swiss Bankers Association (SBA) is desperate to avoid other banks facing a UBS situation and called on negotiators to find a solution this time that keeps secrecy intact. Law abiding SBA chairman Patrick Odier demanded a universal treaty binding on all countries rather than a raft of ad-hoc agreements between Switzerland and other states. “The solution must be globally applicable, definitive and in line with current Swiss laws,” Odier said at the SBA’s annual conference in Zurich on Monday. While accepting that Swiss banks must pay a penalty if they had broken foreign laws, Odier nevertheless denounced the latest demands from US deputy attorney-general James Cole as “too tough”. “The US must recognise that legal certainty [of banking secrecy] is something that Switzerland must guarantee,” he said. “We cannot have one country refusing to respect the laws of another.” The SBA pointed to the recent deals with Britain and Germany as a possible template. Under the terms of these treaties – yet to be rubber stamped – Swiss banks would pay withholding taxes on past and future earnings of foreign account holders. Switzerland has also negotiated a new double taxation agreement with the US that is awaiting approval by the US authorities. UBS deal stands alone “I am very confident that we can find a common solution that would be in the interests of Swiss banks and the US,” SBA chief executive Claude-Alain Margelisch told swissinfo.ch. “We solved the UBS case and I hope we find a definitive global solution for all Swiss banks. We must make sure that we do not have the same problem for a third time.” Margelisch also dismissed the option of another UBS-style treaty despite that deal containing a paragraph that could force other Swiss banks to hand over client data if they were found to have broken US laws in the same way. “The UBS case was special because it involved only one bank in a context that is not comparable with other Swiss banks,” Margelisch told swissinfo.ch. “I could not imagine that the Swiss parliament would be ready to pass another such treaty for the rest of the banking community during election year.” But the latest signs coming from the US do not indicate that the Department of Justice (DoJ) is willing to compromise. Investigations have widened to around ten Swiss banks and Credit Suisse was recently served with official notice that it was being probed. Not bluffing Stories are also appearing in the media that the US negotiators are losing patience with their Swiss counterparts. The fact that the second-highest ranking DoJ official, James Cole, has become publicly involved suggests to US tax lawyer Scott Michel that the US is not likely to withdraw its demands for new bank client data. “It is a mistake to assume that when the DoJ makes a demand that they are bluffing,” Michel told swissinfo.ch. “There appears to be pent-up frustration that two years after the UBS case there is still evidence that other Swiss banks are helping US citizens hide their money away.” He added: “The DoJ is not even asking for an exchange of information – a lengthy process involving case-by-case examination. They want a large batch of Swiss banking client information and they want it now.” According to Michel, the US authorities appear to be building a legal basis to impose “draconian financial penalties” on Swiss banks that could dwarf UBS’s $780 million ($990 million) fine. Swiss media are also reporting that the US would be prepared to start criminal legal proceedings against banks if they do not comply with their demands.

Bogus pensions adviser jailed over £1.9m transfer fraud

2011-09-05T12:23:00.001+01:00

bogus financial adviser who fraudulently manipulated his “clients’” pension funds to avoid paying tax of over £1.9m has been jailed at Hull Crown Court for three years. Colin Pearson (pictured), who previously worked for the Food Standards Agency and held a McDonalds franchise, claimed to be a financial adviser and persuaded his "clients" to release over ₤3.4m from their pension funds. Pearson completed UK pension transfer forms on behalf of his clients to falsely claim funds were going abroad to avoid paying tax due on the pension withdrawals, said HMRC. His fraudulent actions netted him commission payments of over £377,000. He provided fake documentation to register two overseas pension schemes before submitting the fake documents to ensure the funds were released without suspicion or delay to bank accounts he controlled. On occasions he even made telephone calls to the UK pension companies posing as the policy holder. On one call he disguised his voice with a Cypriot accent giving the impression he was calling from overseas. To add further legitimacy to the scam, he used articles from the internet to create a PowerPoint presentation to sell the scheme to unsuspecting UK clients, HMRC added. He then took a cut of the funds before passing the balance onto the pensioners. In total, Pearson persuaded over thirty UK pension holders to make unauthorised transfers of £3.4m to avoid paying tax of £1.9m. The value of the funds released was estimated as £3,440,143, of which £2,997,018 was returned to "clients". He also released his own pensions, valued at £74,619.08. In total approximately £377,608 was taken as commission. He used the proceeds of his scam to maintain a lavish lifestyle, driving expensive cars and owning luxury homes both in the UK and Cyprus. Bob Gaiger from HM Revenue & Customs said: "Whilst Pearson was living a life most people could only dream of, he left the individuals he conned out of pocket and without the pension funds they expected. "HMRC will not tolerate this type of blatant fraud and will investigate and prosecute those found to be involved in stealing from the public purse. If you have any information about tax fraud please contact our 24 hour hotline on 0800 50 5000". On sentencing Pearson, His Honour Judge Richardson QC, said: "You are branded a criminal, your life is utterly destroyed, and you are totally dishonest in your deceitful actions."

SFO probes banks over asset-backed security sales

2011-09-05T12:16:00.001+01:00

The Serious Fraud Office is conducting an examination into banks and their offering of asset backed securities, as part of a ‘scoping exercise’ to see if products have been misrepresented to UK clients. The watchdog said it is consulting with relevant ‘people in the city’ as part of its broad-sweeping investigation into any potentially fraudulent sales of asset backed securities. A spokesperson for the SFO said: ‘We are conducting a scoping exercise into UK banks about all asset backed securities.’ Although the watchdog said this examination has been going on for ‘some time’, it would not clarify whether it was targeting any particular types of asset backed securities. After 2008, asset backed products such as collateralised debt obligations and mortgage backed securities came under fire for arguably sparking the financial crisis. As part of the exercise, the SFO is making inquiries into Goldman Sachs, including the ‘Timberwolf’ deal, a mortgage security underwritten by the bank in 2007, which has been scrutinised by lawyers in the US, according to the Financial Times. Earlier in the year, the SFO said it was looking into exchange-traded funds, as a 'potential threat' to market stability and as a form of asset-backed security which could follow the path of CDOs.

NSW businesses warned of travelling conmen

2011-09-05T11:53:00.001+01:00

Residents and businesses in NSW are being urged to be on the lookout for travelling conmen and itinerant domestic gangs. A nationwide crackdown aims to have scammers who visit Australia seasonally removed from the country and barred from re-entering, as well as local gangs that travel around conning people. NSW Fair Trading Minister Anthony Roberts on Monday warned of conmen specialising in scams such as bitumen laying, roof painting and back-of-truck dealings on electronics. "We want to catch these crooks, hold them accountable for their crimes and keep the market fair and free of rip-offs," he said in a statement. "What we are dealing with is organised, criminal activity that creates market distortions as legitimate businesses face unfair competition." The conmen structure their operations so consumers are often unable to get remedies in courts, consumer tribunals or through dispute resolution. They are the focus of a new nationwide strategy finalised at the Ministerial Council on Consumer Affairs in Canberra earlier this year. "All Australian consumer protection jurisdictions are working together under the new Australian Consumer Law with concerted, nationally coordinated operations using new prosecution powers and remedies," Mr Roberts said.

Two former California radio hosts of a money matters show have been charged with real estate fraud.

2011-09-01T17:19:00.001+01:00

Ventura County sheriff's Sgt. Cary Peterson says 58-year-old Kenneth Powell, 62-year-old Kathryn Rose and 68-year-old Paul Charles Lascola were arrested Wednesday after prosecutors charged them with crimes ranging from fraudulent land deals and misappropriation of more than $3 million in investor funds.

Each defendant is charged with dozens of felonies. Bail is set at $1 million each.

Powell and Rose were known as "Ken and Katie" when they hosted weekend radio infomercial shows called "Academy of Real Estate," "Money Intelligence" and "The Ken & Katie Show" on Ventura radio station KVTA.

Listeners were encouraged to attend investment seminars, where they were led to invest in various properties.

A LAVISH wedding celebration helped snare a bride who stole nearly £170,000 from her boss

2011-09-01T16:42:00.002+01:00

A SKINT clerk who stole £168,000 from her boss to pay for a dream wedding was rumbled when she invited him to the lavish bash.

Kirsty Lane splashed out on a firework display, singers, musicians, free bar, DJs, a magician and face painter for the reception after her marriage to husband Graham.

Stunned guests received wedding gifts which included the happy couple’s initials printed on individual Smarties. But the no expenses spared party aroused the suspicions of boss Peter Sutton, especially as Lane always pleaded poverty at work. And the 29-year-old was last night awaiting sentence after admitting fraud by falsifying invoices at the audio visual firm where she worked.

After she appeared before magistrates, Mr Sutton said: “It was the wedding that first started to raise alarm bells. Up to that point we had no idea. She was always claiming poverty and didn’t do anything that would tip us off.

“Then the reception was the most lavish thing I’ve ever seen. I trusted her implicitly and this was how she repaid us.”

His business partner Richard Lister added: “It was like somebody had been to a wedding fayre and said, ‘I want one of everything.’

“We were joking with Kirsty, saying, ‘We are going back to work now to check the accounts’. She was laughing about it.

Kirsty Lane with her bridesmaids at her wedding

“From the moment you arrived at the wedding reception there was a harpist playing, the flowers were incredible. There was a saxophonist, a table magician coming round, canapes being served, a free bar, a singer performing throughout the meal and into the evening, a three-piece soul band.

“As it got dark there was a big firework display with their initials all in fireworks.

“I have no idea what it would have cost. But it would have been an absolute fortune. We completely trusted Kirsty. She had access to all the accounts.

“She had said her mum was made redundant and received some money and helped towards the wedding. We had no reason to disbelieve that.”

Lane married Graham at the Tudor-built Great Hall at Mains venue, in Little Singleton, Lancs. At the end of the evening the couple left in a white stretch limousine.

She worked at Pure AV in nearby Leyland for four years. As well as fiddling invoices, she also bought her unwitting bridesmaids their dresses using the accounts and a £1,500 jewel-encrusted case for her iPod.

Mr Sutton said the company loaned Lane £7,000 and boosted her wages to help her cope with the financial struggles.

Days after the January wedding while the mum-of-one was on honeymoon in the Lake District, a routine check of the firm’s accounts revealed the discrepancies.

Lane was arrested at her home in Adlington, Lancs.

Mr Sutton added: “You read about these things but you never think it will happen to you. It caused a lot of sleepless nights.

“We are not a large company, a lot of livelihoods depend on us.”

Lane will be sent to Preston crown court for sentencing later.

Ex-radio personality Tanya Cruise is asking to receive probation for her role in an insurance-fraud scheme.

2011-08-20T16:41:00.001+01:00

Lori Sergiacomi, whose radio name was Tanya Cruise, is a giving, yet gullible, person who got caught up in a scheme masterminded by others, according to a memorandum filed by her lawyer, William P. Devereaux.

The government is asking for Sergiacomi to serve four months in prison, followed by four months in a halfway house. Prosecutors say the crimes transpired over time, giving Sergiacomi “ample opportunity” to step away. Instead, she “jumped in with both feet” and sought to exploit the floods of 2010 for financial gain, wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney John P. McAdams.

Devereaux wrote that the former host on LiteRock 105 has suffered greatly by being known as a convicted felon and losing a job to which she had dedicated her life. He noted that her employer, Citadel Broadcasting, promptly fired her from the position she held for 17 years after news of the charges surfaced, though the company has hired and retained radio personalities with felony convictions.

Sergiacomi, 49, agreed in May to plead guilty to conspiracy and mail fraud and pay $40,012. She could face up to 85 years in prison and $1.25 million in fines.

She was one of four people named in a indictment that also targeted ex-North Providence Councilman John A. Zambarano; Robert A. Ricci, former North Providence Town Council president and hearing officer for the state Contractors’ Registration and Licensing Board; and Vincent O. DiPaolo, an unlicensed public insurance adjuster.

All have pleaded guilty to mail fraud and conspiracy. Sergiacomi and Ricci are due to be sentenced Aug. 25.

Under the scheme, the group conspired to file the bogus insurance claim after groundwater seeped into Sergiacomi’s basement during the floods, causing damage that was not insured. Zambarano, who installed carpeting for her parents, persuaded Sergiacomi not to seek relief through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Devereaux said. He told her something to the effect of “don’t worry about anything. I know a guy that can straighten this all out,” Devereaux wrote.

The plan entailed Zambarano and Ricci damaging her roof and ripping her swimming pool liner with a tree branch. She would then submit a claim for nearly $50,000, blaming the damage on a made-up wind and rain storm so it would be covered by her insurance policy. Sergiacomi would hire Zambarano and Ricci to re-roof the house, which she inherited after caring for her parents through illnesses that led to their deaths, he said.

Sergiacomi grew concerned the damage they caused was so extensive it would not be fully covered, Devereaux said. The only repairs completed were the installation of a new pool liner and a roofing job done by Ricci. The basement damage, as well as destruction by Zambarano, remains.

FBI agents captured discussions of the plot while Zambarano was under surveillance in the North Providence public-corruption scandal.

In asking for consideration, Devereaux described Sergiacomi as a single woman who dedicated time to various charities. She also cares for a very ill and elderly dog, one of two dogs that have been her constant companions, he said.

Sergiacomi also asked for relief from possible fines, saying she is a person of modest means. Her financial problems were compounded by her decision to co-sign a loan for her supervisor’s daughter’s car that went into default, Devereaux said.

Arkansas lawyer and businessman admitted Wednesday to staging a Ponzi scheme that netted more than $47 million

2011-08-05T22:00:00.001+01:00

Arkansas lawyer and businessman admitted Wednesday to staging a Ponzi scheme that netted more than $47 million, a scam one prosecutor called the largest case of fraud in state history.

Kevin Lewis, 43, pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of bank fraud in federal district court in Little Rock. U.S. Attorney Christopher Thyer said Lewis likely would receive between 10 to 13 years in prison, though bank fraud carries a maximum penalty of up to 30 years.

He also will have to pay restitution of almost $40 million, though that could be further reduced as banks work to recover their losses. Several banks have sued Lewis in civil court.

Lewis created paperwork for fake rural improvement bonds often used by developers, prosecutor Karen Whatley said Wednesday. The scheme began in 1997 with what Thyer called a "single, small loan." It grew to involve at least seven Arkansas banks.

One bank, First Southern in Batesville, gave Lewis about $23 million based on the fake paperwork. In August 2009, Lewis took majority control of the bank using a $4.6 million loan from another bank, First State in Lonoke, that was backed by the same false bonds.

He never defaulted on any bonds. Instead, he issued new bonds to cover the payments on existing ones, Thyer said.

"This Ponzi scheme, he was able to roll and roll and roll," Thyer said in a news conference after the hearing.

The money went to his varied business interests across the state, including a law firm, apartments, a car dealership and a clothing company. It also supported a lifestyle that Thyer called "opulent" -- a multimillion-dollar house in west Little Rock, fancy cars and vacations.

The scheme was discovered after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. did an audit of First Southern Bank last October. It found problems with the portfolio of rural improvement bonds created by Lewis, Thyer said. The FDIC would eventually turn over the investigation to the U.S. Attorney's office and the FBI.

"Mr. Lewis' scheme was simple," Thyer said in a news conference after the hearing. "He knew that rural improvement district bonds were not registered in the state, and he used that knowledge and his position of trust to create fraudulent bonds and then use those fraudulent bonds as collateral to obtain money from various financial institutions in Arkansas."

In court Wednesday, Lewis acknowledged that the evidence against him was true. U.S. District Judge James M. Moody did not schedule a sentencing date, but said he would likely follow federal sentencing guidelines later cited by Thyer.

Lewis walked out of the courthouse with his attorney, Tim Dudley, who declined to comment. Asked for his thoughts on the deal afterward, Lewis shook his head and said, "Sorry."

Five Lawyers Charged In $58M Mortgage Fraud Scheme

2011-08-04T21:47:00.001+01:00

Federal prosecutors in New York on Thursday charged fourteen people in an alleged $58 million mortgage fraud, including five lawyers, one of whom previously had been disbarred. The scheme, which ran from 2004 to 2009 and revolved around a company called First Class Equities, allegedly involved more than 100 home mortgage loans on properties in the New York City area, as well as Long Island and Westchester and Dutchess Counties.

Allegedly corrupt lawyers have been a common theme in several mortgage fraud schemes that have come to light in recent years in the New York area. You can read press releases on two recent mortgage-fraud takedowns that included lawyers here and here.

In the latest scheme, at least two of the lawyers charged–Jacquelyn Todaro and Kevin Hymowitz–allegedly recruited so-called straw buyers, persons who were paid to pose as home buyers, but had no intention of living in or paying off the mortgaged properties, prosecutors said.

The attorneys allegedly received loan proceeds from the banks and submitted false paperwork about how those moneys were distributed, instead making large, illicit payments to their co-conspirators, prosecutors said.

One of the “lawyers” was allegedly Michael Schlussel, who was disbarred in 2003 and wasn’t licensed to practice law, prosecutors said.

Schlussel previously pleaded guilty to practicing law without a license in July 2009. Nassau County prosecutors alleged at the time that he was posing a lawyer in a landlord-tenant dispute and had previously appeared at real estate closings.

Todaro and Schlussel also allegedly provided fake documents to lenders for home equity loans or second mortgages on the same day some straw buyers “purchased” properties, prosecutors said.

Counsel for the accused lawyers couldn’t immediately be located for comment Thursday.

Ghana at unenviable position on internet fraud table

2011-06-11T02:08:00.001+01:00

Ghana Telecom University College, quoting the Internet Crime Complaints Centre (IC3) Report for 2010, on Wednesday said Ghana ranked among the top 10 countries of global internet fraud.

Ghana is at the eighth position and the college said the report was indicative of the extent and nature of internet fraud in the country.

The top 10 countries, according to the report, are United States of America, the United Kingdom, Nigeria, China, Canada, Malaysia, Spain, Ghana, Cameroon and Australia.

These were made known by Dr Franklin Asamoa-Baah, Head of the Faculty of Informatics of the college, at a day's research seminar organised by the college on internet fraud also known as “Sakawa”.

The seminar was to disseminate findings of a recent research on internet fraud carried out in some selected communities in Accra by the college.

The objectives of the study were to identify the types and causes of internet fraud in Ghana and assess its effect on the nation.

Internet fraud refers to any type of fraudulent scheme that uses one or more components of the internet such as chat rooms, email, message boards and websites to present fraudulent solicitations to prospective victims, or to transmit the proceeds of fraud to financial institutions or to others connected to the internet.

Dr Asamoah-Baah said there had been a shift from physical assets to intangibles as objects of crime, with no boundaries or physical constraints.

“Computer crime is cheap, ubiquitous and fast. It can hurt a huge number of people with one crime and breaks state, national and international laws simultaneously.

“However, most cyber crimes went unpunished”, Dr Asamoa-Baah noted.

According to him, despite the research being limited to Accra, the respondents were unwilling to release information and it had to rely heavily on data from the Ghana Police Service.

High on the list are nationalities from Ghana, Nigeria and Mali with a high percentage of teenagers involved in the crime.

Stolen credit cards topped the list of the crimes, followed by sale of gold and online dating, confidence fraud, fake documents and transfer of inheritance, fake websites, fake contracts, kidnap and robbery and employment scam.

The study, according to Dr Awua-Baafour, identified the causes of internet fraud in Ghana as unemployment, peer pressure and desire for quick money among others.

He expressed worry about the negative image the country was earning through the scams saying they reduced the acceptance and adoption of electronic commerce in the country resulting in monetary loss, loss of property and self worth.

It also, however, was an indication that more youth were becoming information technology savvy.

Dr Robert Awuah Baafuor, Vice President of the College, called for thinking outside the box, more education on computer fraud and an effective collaboration among security agencies to deal with internet fraudsters.

He also advocated for clear legislation on computer scams to make prosecution less difficult.

Gold dealer in crosshairs of Quebec tax agency

2011-06-11T02:06:00.001+01:00

High-profile precious metals trader Kitco Metals Inc. vows to vigorously fight accusations that it took part in an elaborate fraud involving more than 100 companies that allegedly bilked the Quebec government of $150-million in sales taxes on close to $2-billion in transactions.

The Montreal-based trading and research company, which bills itself as one of the largest retailers of precious metals in the world, and another Montreal company, wholesaler Carmen International Inc., are among more than 100 companies and dozens of individuals named in Revenue Quebec allegations of a sophisticated false-billing operation.

Revenue Quebec said more than 175 investigators swooped down on businesses, homes, accountants’ offices and other sites on Thursday, with more than 70 search warrants in hand. The targets included locations in Montreal and several suburbs, north and south shore communities as well as St-Bernard-de-Lacolle, near the U.S. border.

The tax agency alleges that two separate networks used artificial transactions involving a cycle in which pure gold (which is not taxable) was converted into gold scrap (which is taxable), then shipped to a refiner to be once again transformed into pure gold.

The transactions were allegedly used to make phony claims for refunds on sales taxes on the gold that was rendered into scrap. None of the allegations have been proved in court.

Revenue Quebec alleges that Kitco played a key role in moving the gold through the various stages of the cycle.

But Kitco said in a news release that it never participated in a tax fraud and has never carried out any fictitious transactions.

The company said it buys precious-metals scrap and pays the suppliers sales taxes on these purchases, for which it receives a tax credit. Kitco said that is up to the suppliers to pay back the sales taxes to Revenue Quebec and that if some of those suppliers have not remitted the taxes paid to them, then the tax agency is unjustly holding Kitco responsible.

An employee at Carmen International said there would be no comment on the matter.

Revenue Quebec said in a news release that it has a duty to be “intransigent with those who flout fiscal rules and can proceed with penal proceedings against them.” Fines of between 125 per cent and 200 per cent of the taxes evaded can be imposed, as well as prison terms of up to five years, it said.

Sharlene Dozois, Kitco’s marketing director, said in an interview that the search-and-seizure action taken by Revenue Quebec agents recently was completely unexpected. “We were in ongoing negotiations to settle [sales-tax related issues],” she said. “These had been ongoing for some time. We were co-operating with them every step of the way,” she said, declining to provide details of the talks.

Kitco said it will be better able to fight for its good name after having been granted court approval Friday allowing it to continue operating under the purview of receiver RSM Richter Inc. in the event that assets were seized.

One of Kitco’s key partners is the Royal Canadian Mint, which refines scrap gold for the company. Kitco, in turn, is a major distributor of the Mint’s products.

“We’re aware of the allegations. We are monitoring the situation by-day-day,” Mint spokesman Alex Reeves said Friday. “We have had a relationship with Kitco for over 30 years. It’s an important distributor of our gold and silver bullion products.”

According to Revenue Quebec, the alleged scam worked this way: Supplier A sells a quantity of pure gold to refiner B. Pure gold is not subject to sales tax, so there is no impact on provincial sales tax. Refiner B melts the gold into scrap, which makes it subject to tax.

Refiner B then sells the scrap back to Supplier A. The scrap is subject to sales tax, so the refiner adds the provincial tax to the bill. But Refiner B does not remit the sales tax to Revenue Quebec. Supplier A requests a tax refund from Revenue Quebec for the sales tax paid to Refiner B. Supplier A then sends the scrap gold to again be transformed back to pure gold.

The tax agency outlined the allegations in a detailed court document of more than 100 pages. It said the investigation into Kitco’s operations covered a period from 2006 to 2010.

Asil Nadir is granted legal aid to fight theft charges

2011-06-08T09:32:00.001+01:00

Asil Nadir, the former Polly Peck tycoon, has been granted legal aid to fight the multimillion-pound theft charges he spent 17 years running from, a decision likely to leave taxpayers with a substantial bill.

The businessman, whose trial is due to begin in January, is expected to make a "substantial" contribution to his court costs but was granted assistance after an assessment of his finances, the Legal Services Commission said.

The former billionaire faces 13 counts of false accounting for allegedly plundering his FTSE 100-listed Polly Peck empire, which collapsed in 1990 with debts of more than £1.3bn, wiping out the savings and pensions of tens of thousands of investors.

Nadir was arrested shortly after the collapse but fled Britain for Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus in 1993 after being charged with 66 counts of theft totalling £150m, later reduced to £34m. He was arrested after returning to Britain in August last year.

A spokeswoman for the Legal Services Commission said Nadir, a Turkish Cypriot, could be entitled to claim up to £145 an hour to cover legal fees under means testing procedures introduced last year.

She said an investigation was under way to determine the extent of his holdings, which could be appropriated if Nadir is convicted. "If Asil Nadir is found guilty at his crown court trial, he may be required to pay a further contribution from his capital assets," she said. "The legal aid funding will be managed under a case plan by a specialist team at the Legal Services Commission and the costs incurred will be closely monitored."

Nadir, 69, is free on conditional bail pending a hearing at the Old Bailey that is expected to last up to four months. He is scheduled to attend a pre-trial hearing in November.

Linda Speaks Tribby, a former Wachovia Bank manager in Purcellville who pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $14 million, was sentenced to seven years in prison

2011-06-03T21:23:00.001+01:00

Linda Speaks Tribby, a former Wachovia Bank manager in Purcellville who pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $14 million, was sentenced to seven years in prison Friday.
Tribby, 42, admitted in March to stealing $14.1 million from bank clients over the course of seven years by persuading them to invest in bogus wealth management accounts. She pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud in federal court in Alexandria.
Tribby was accused of using the money to buy land in New York and Nevada, a house in West Virginia, several automobiles and a helicopter.
She was also ordered Friday to make full restitution to victims and to forfeit bank accounts and property.
“Linda Tribby’s stunning greed and extravagant life style drove her to steal more than $14 million,” said U.S. Attorney MacBride. “For more than seven years, she betrayed the trust of the bank’s customers and stole their money to buy a Bell helicopter, a lake house, a hunting cabin, a luxury motor home, cars, real estate and a menagerie of exotic animals. Ms. Tribby will now spend the next seven years in federal prison for her crimes which devastated the lives of the victims.”
Tribby, admitted that as a business relationship manager between December 2003 and January 2011, she offered bank customers accounts she claimed would earn interest tax-free, even though the bank offered no such accounts. She then transferred money from those accounts to accounts controlled by her and hid her scheme by fabricating computer generated statements sent periodically to clients, prosecutors alleged.
Wells Fargo & Co., which acquired Wachovia in 2008, uncovered the fraud through an internal investigation.
Tribby was arrested Jan. 23 at Dulles International Airport.

IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has consented to a medical examination over allegations of serious sexual assault.

2011-05-16T10:05:00.001+01:00

Mr Strauss-Kahn, who was arrested on Saturday, denies charges of attacking and attempting to rape a hotel maid.

He had been due to appear in court on Sunday but the hearing was postponed until Monday to allow the forensic tests to be carried out.

The former French finance minister is also considered a possible Socialist candidate for the presidency.

He had been scheduled to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday in Berlin and then attend an EU finance ministers' meeting in Brussels on Monday on bailouts for Portugal and Greece.

I do not believe for one second the accusations brought against my husband”

Anne Sinclair
Wife of Mr Strauss-Kahn
Correspondents say he has been central to efforts to stabilise the finances of struggling eurozone member states and his detention is likely to complicate the process.

The Euro fell half a cent to $1.4063 when Asian markets opened on Monday - a six-week low against the dollar - reflecting concerns about the impact the arrest could have on bailouts plans for Portugal and Greece.

Mr Strauss-Kahn - often referred to in France simply as DSK - was detained at JFK airport on Saturday night as he prepared to fly to Europe.

He is believed to have been in New York on personal business. He does not have diplomatic immunity, a New York police spokesman said.

The first reaction of many ordinary French people is that this has got to be a put-up job. That says more about French political culture, that there have been so many operations mounted against politicians. It has been full of dirty tricks in the past.

But this changes everything. There's a lingering hope among some of Mr Strauss-Kahn's supporters that somehow this will be explained away.

The conspiracy theories are beginning to circulate on the internet but realistically there is no evidence for that. I think in the next day or so, the realisation will really take hold that his candidacy is over.

For the left, it is a bitter blow because he was very much the man they thought could carry their banner through to next year's elections and beat Nicolas Sarkozy.

The 62-year-old was kept overnight in a special unit for sexual harassment in New York's Harlem borough. On Sunday he was charged with a "criminal sexual act, unlawful imprisonment, and attempted rape".

Police say the 32-year-old woman who made the allegations has formally identified him in a line-up.

Mr Strauss-Kahn's clothing will be tested for DNA traces, the New York Times reported.

Hedge fund billionaire Raj Rajaratnam was convicted on all 14 counts of fraud and conspiracy Wednesday in the biggest insider trading case in a generation.

2011-05-11T18:34:00.001+01:00

The verdict was an historic victory for the Justice Department, which used tactics once reserved for investigations of mobsters, drug dealers and the like to expose financial professionals and corporate insiders trafficking in such business confidences as details about pending mergers.

The prosecution secretly made recordings of Rajaratnam talking to his alleged tipsters, taking the jury to a dark side of Wall Street that was long the realm of suspicion rather than proof. The government also drew upon testimony of co-conspirators whom the government had turned against Rajaratnam.

Rajaratnam, 53, head of Galleon Management, was accused of using fraud to reap profits or avoid losses of more than $60 million.

The case ushered in a new era in white collar criminal prosecutions, said Anthony Michael Sabino, a professor at St. John’s University.

“For more than 30 years, the government has had a spotty history in insider trading cases, reflecting the difficulty of gathering evidence, explaining the machinations of high finance to a jury, and reconciling sometimes conflicting legal theories,” Sabino said in a statement.

“Not so here, because Raj hung himself with his own words, as caught on tape,” he said.

One of Rajaratnam’s alleged tipsters had been a member of the board of Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs and a former head of the international management consulting giant McKinsey & Co. He allegedly tipped Rajaratnam to the fact that Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffet was going to make a crucial investment in Goldman Sachs at the height of the financial crisis.

The parade of witnesses at the trial in federal court in Manhattan included the chairman of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein.

Rajaratnam did not testify in his own defense, but his lawyer argued that he traded on legitimate investment analysis and information in the public domain.

“Rajaratnam was among the best and the brightest – one of the most educated, successful and privileged professionals in the country. Yet, like so many others recently, he let greed and corruption cause his undoing,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement.

Insider trading should be offensive to everyone who relies on the stock market because it “ cheats the ordinary investor, victimizes the companies whose information is stolen, and is an affront not only to the fairness of the market, but the rule of law,” he said.

Amid a broader crackdown on such crimes, Rajaratnam was the 35th person-- and the most prominent -- convicted of insider trading in the Southern District of New York in the past year and a half.

The stakes were high for both sides.

Given the extraordinary evidence the government had amassed against Rajaratnam, had the verdict gone the other way, “it would have made insider trading cases against Wall Street traders almost impossible,” said J. Robert Brown, professor of law at the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law.

Brown predicted the verdict will force insider traders to exchange information “in a more devious manner,” but he doubted it would hamper insider trading.

Six jailed, fined Dh1.8b in Dubai bank fraud case

2011-04-28T17:15:00.001+01:00

In one of the biggest fraud cases worth Dh1.8 billion, the Dubai Court of First Instance jailed six expatriates, including two former ex-Dubai Islamic Bank employees to 10 years each.
Presiding Judge Fahmi Mounir Fahmi on Wednesday, also fined the guilty Dh1.8 billion and ordered them to repay the amount jointly to Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB). The judge also fined three of the defendants Dh7.2 million and ordered them to jointly repay the amount to the bank.

The Dubai Public Prosecution had charged the seven suspects — three Britons, two Pakistanis, a Turk and an American — with embezzling public funds, deliberately helping others to embezzle public funds, inflicting intentional loss to the government and its interests, unlawful profiting and forging official documents and using them.

The public prosecution accused the two Pakistani executives (former bank employees), the finance manager of the bank and his deputy of aiding and abetting the embezzlement of public funds, inflicting intentional loss to the government and its interests, and the forging of official documents.

The two bank employees facilitated the forging of documents and increased the credit limit for two businessmen against taking money. In return, the manager received a bribe of $750,000 while the deputy received $950,000. The American is at large after

embezzling $2 million and establishing a company. He also forged invoices, documents of sales and purchase transactions. The British businessman along with the Turkish national and two other British nationals embezzled Dh1,841,000 from the bank using forged documents facilitated by the bank employees.

Meanwhile, the seventh suspect, a British businessman, has been acquitted. All the six including two suspects who are at large will be deported after serving the jail term. All six suspects can appeal the court ruling within 15 days.

The fraud caused a loss of $501 million (around Dh1.8 billion) worth of public funds belonging to DIB. The case was referred by the Dubai Public Prosecution to the court on March 30, 2009.

Kuldip Singh Sander of Perry Barr, Birmingham, a prolific horse racing gambler, played a pivotal role in these offences and had responsibility for overseeing the money laundering part of the fraud.

2011-04-06T01:43:00.001+01:00

Adrian Farley, Assistant Director for HMRC said:
"This was not some kind of victimless crime, but organised fraud on a massive scale perpetrated by criminals all bent on making fast and easy profits at the expense of the British taxpayer. This was theft of revenue needed to fund our country´s public services but instead it fuelled their elaborate lifestyles. `Missing trader´ fraud is not merely a paper fraud but often features links to other forms of criminal activity such as drug smuggling and violent crime."

He added:
"We have worked closely with law enforcement agencies in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Ireland on this case and will not stop in our fight to win the war on crime. We will take every action possible to identify and eradicate corruption to maintain the integrity and reputation of our organisation."

The court heard the organised crime group fraudulently evaded VAT of around £60 million within the computer chip and mobile phone industry and laundered the proceeds of the crime. This provided a luxury lifestyle for those involved including ringside seats for the World Title fight between Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis in 2002 in America. Investigations by HMRC involved breaking the audit trail of businesses based throughout the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.

In July 2002, in one of the largest operations ever undertaken, some 200 HMRC officers targeted private and business addresses, following a thorough and comprehensive investigation. They arrested and subsequently charged 17 people with a number of offences including Conspiracy to Cheat the Public Revenue, Corruption of a Customs Officer and Money Laundering Offences. The sophisticated scam involved the setting up of numerous false VAT registered businesses, bogus bank accounts opened by a bank official from Barclays Bank and the corruption of a Customs Officer.

On sentencing Sander, The Recorder of Birmingham, His Honour Judge Davis QC, said:
"You have been convicted for offences of laundering substantial proceeds of crime in a sophisticated fraud on the revenue." He commended the role of HMRC Criminal Investigation officers.

Five trials have taken place four at Northampton and one at Birmingham Crown Courts since May 2005. All have been subject to stringent reporting restrictions - all of which have now been lifted.

airline stewardess struggling to lift her bag at a German airport led to the discovery of a 6-million euro ($8.4 million) coin fraud.

2011-03-31T17:24:00.001+01:00

The customs officer who stopped the stewardess in early 2010 found thousands of one and two euro coins in her bag, Bild newspaper reported in its Thursday edition.

The incident sparked an investigation that has uncovered a forgery ring stretching to China and potentially implicating employees of German airline Lufthansa, the paper said.

The Frankfurt prosecutors' office said on Thursday it carried out dawn raids on offices and residences and arrested six people, four of whom are from China.

It suspects them of having smuggled coins that had been taken out of circulation or bits of those coins into Germany from China, where they had been sent as scrap metal.

The suspects then put the coins back together and exchanged them for a total of 6 million euros at the Bundesbank from 2007 to 2010, the prosecutors said.

Airline cabin crew do not have a weight limit on their baggage, prosecutors highlighted in a statement.

There was no suspicion of any wrongdoing on the part of Bundesbank employees, the prosecutors' office added.

The Bundesbank said in a statement it was aware of the investigation into the use of scrapped coins. It also said that no Bundesbank employees were subject to the investigation.

A Lufthansa spokesman on Thursday said it was aware that individual employees were under investigation, but said the group could not comment on the investigation.

Old euro coins are taken out of circulation by removing the inner part of the coin from an outer ring and thus effectively turning them into scrap metal.

The investigators recovered around 3 metric tons of coin pieces as well as a machine for putting them back together, prosecutors said in the statement.

The Bundesbank is the only institute in Europe that exchanges damaged euro coins for free, replacing them with new ones of the same value.

Anthony James Morris of Palm Beach, Australia was charged yesterday (30 March) with defrauding nine pension funds of £52m,

2011-03-31T17:22:00.001+01:00

Anthony James Morris of Palm Beach, Australia was charged yesterday (30 March) with defrauding nine pension funds of £52m, making him the fifth individual charged in the case.
Mr Morris, who was returned from Australia yesterday on an extradition warrant, has been remanded in custody to appear before Southwark Crown Court on 8 April 2011.
He was charged with conspiracy to defraud, theft and aiding and abetting fraud.
Mr Morris was a founding director of The Money Portal, which was the parent company of the independent trustee company GP Noble Trustees.
The case was referred to the Serious Fraud Office in July 2008 by The Pensions Regulator (TPR) following concerns raised over the conduct of G P Noble.
The Pensions Regulator (TPR) appointed Independent Trustee Services Limited (ITS) to manage the nine affected pension schemes in place of GP Noble.
TPR suspended GP Noble and two of its directors/officers, Graham Pitcher and Gary Cordell, from acting as trustees.
All three have since been prohibited from acting as trustees and GP Noble has gone into liquidation.
The Serious Fraud Office claims the alleged actions exposed the pensions of approximately 2,200 people to unacceptable risk.
Peter Malmstrom, 43, of London, an associate of Mr Morris, was charged in November 2010 with money laundering and proceeds of crime offences.
Mr Pitcher and Mr Cordell were charged in March 2010 while independent financial advisor Quentin Russell,

Rome court on Thursday ordered the disgraced billionaire founder of Italian internet company Fastweb to be released from house arrest

2011-03-13T20:11:00.001Z

Rome court on Thursday ordered the disgraced billionaire founder of Italian internet company Fastweb to be released from house arrest in northern Italy at the request of his lawyers. Silvio Scaglia, 52, is currently on trial over a 2 billion euro mafia money laundering and tax fraud scam.

"I am regaining my freedom after being detained in jail and under house arrest for a year. I had lived abroad for many years, but returned to Italy to defend myself as soon as I learned of my arrest warrant," Scaglia commented from his home in the Valle d'Aosta region.
"I knew I would have to spend time in detention order to demonstrate my lack of involvement in every alleged crime. I never imagined such a protracted and tormented ordeal, however."
But I respect the Italian justice system. I remain convinced it was right to hand myself in and am counting on the current trial to prove my innocence," Scaglia stated.
Scaglia is among 36 suspects including former Fastweb executives of who are getting a fast-trial with no preliminary hearing.
Prosecutors allege that Scaglia and executives at Fastweb and Telecom Italia's Sparkle unit were aware of suspect purchase and sale of telecoms services between 2003 and 2006, valued at 2 billion euros that enabled the companies to garner up to 400 million euros in allegedly illegal tax credits.
Prosecutors believe that as chief executive at the time of the alleged scheme, Scaglia must have been aware of illegal operations going on at Fastweb, Italy's second largest telecommunications company.
Scaglia was chief executive in 2007 when Swisscom acquired the firm. He resigned from Fastweb's board in March 2010 after his arrest on 26 February that year.
He spent nearly three months in jail before being granted house arrest.

British International Monetary Fund civil suit in Singapore.

2011-03-13T20:09:00.001Z

HE SAID he was an experienced businessman and a Christian. What he failed to mention was that he had run a string of failed companies and had once been jailed nine years for fraud.

When Mr Michael Ng Fook Khau asked Ms Chan Pui Woo to take part in an investment scheme that could help fund her Christian charity work, she agreed. But the promised returns never materialised.

Now Mr Ng, 70, has been ordered by the High Court to pay Ms Chan $18 million in damages for failing to keep to his side of the deal.

The payout is one of the largest ever handed out by a court registrar in a civil suit in Singapore.

Mr Ng, a former police inspector, was introduced to Ms Chan, a lawyer in her 40s, by a colleague of hers in 2002. He told her he had $64 million in a bank in Britain, which could be released only if a tax was a paid to what he called the 'British International Monetary Fund'.

Mr Ng, who also claimed to be a former director of the Swiss-Euro Credit Bank, said that if she gave him $816,336, he would guarantee her a return of $1.675 million in two weeks once the tax was paid and the money released.

Bob Waxman had a taste for the finer things in life — jewellery and expensive watches, investments in fine wine, exotic sports cars and race horses.

2011-03-12T18:43:00.001Z

Bob Waxman had a taste for the finer things in life — jewellery and expensive watches, investments in fine wine, exotic sports cars and race horses.

On Friday, the way he paid for those luxuries caught up with him as a jury convicted him of six fraud and theft charges dating back to 1996.

The second son of Chester Waxman stood in stone-faced silence as the panel of seven men and five women answered “guilty” six times and then intoned “I agree” when polled individually. On the seventh charge, one of theft, the jury said they could not reach a unanimous verdict after three days of deliberation.

Waxman’s wife, Debra, who attended most of the trial, sat behind him, chewing her lip and wringing her hands, but showing no other emotion. No other relatives attended. His father, who was always so proud of the family name, was spared seeing a son branded a criminal. He died of cancer in 2008.

Waxman was accused of cheating Philip Services Corp. of almost $20 million US through a series of fraudulent copper trades while be was president of the company’s metals recovery group in 1996 and 1997. More than $17.8 million of that money was channeled through a series of companies in Waxman’s name, finally coming to rest in a Swiss bank account.

The jurors, who started hearing evidence in January, had been hammering out their verdicts since late Tuesday morning. During that time they sent out several notes asking for clarification of evidence and, late on Thursday, to hear a replay of testimony from witnesses regarding the last charge. On Friday, they sent a final note to Justice Thomas Lofchik saying they had reached unanimous verdicts on six cases but “in fairness to Mr. Waxman … and our duty to society” they were “unable to reach an agreement that is acceptable to everyone” on the final charge.

They added “after an honest and exhaustive effort … we do not feel continued deliberations will be fruitful” and “humbly” asked to deliver the six verdicts they had reached and be recorded as a hung jury on the final count.

That request sent Crown and defence lawyers scurrying for their online law books to find out if such an outcome was legal. They concluded the available case law didn’t provide a helpful answer, but it was obvious that exhorting the jury to keep trying wouldn’t help and might run the risk of causing someone to abandon an honestly held opinion just to get a unanimous decision.

“I believe they have been very diligent about this,” Lofchik said in the absence of the jury. “They’re not just saying I want to go home.”

After accepting their decision, Lofchik thanked them “for the conscientious way you have fulfilled your duties.

“I know this has been a long and difficult trial … and the destruction of your lives by fulfilling your civic duty has been extreme,” he said.

Ronald Weinberg and his wife, Micheline Charest, founded the animation company Cinar,

2011-03-12T18:41:00.001Z

Ronald Weinberg and his wife, Micheline Charest, founded the animation company Cinar, creating such children’s classics as Arthur and Caillou. They won an Emmy and untold riches for their work. Ms. Charest was listed at number 19 in Hollywood Reporter’s 1997 list of most powerful women, ahead of Madonna and Barbra Streisand.

Some 15 years after allegations of fraud first surfaced against the couple, Mr. Weinberg, 59, has now landed in criminal court.

He appeared Friday to face 36 fraud and forgery charges. He turned himself in to Canadian police this week after spending a few days sheltered in the resort area of Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic.

Modestly dressed in a corduroy coat and a tan tuque to match his bronzed complexion, Mr. Weinberg was taken into custody Thursday night at Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport.

The U.S. native was released Friday after a brief hearing where he agreed to post $140,000 bail and to confine himself to two homes, one in the Montreal suburb of Pointe-Claire, the other on Long Island in Great Neck, N.Y.

The arrest came one week after officials issued the warrant for his arrest. Crown prosecutor Matthew Ferguson agreed to the terms of Mr. Weinberg’s release. Defence lawyer Christine Filteau said Mr. Weinberg intends to fight the charges.

“We are very confident we will establish his innocence in this process,” Ms. Filteau said.

Three of Mr. Weinberg’s former associates are also facing charges. Cinar’s former chief financial officer Hasanain Panju and former financier Pasquale Matteo have already appeared in court. John Xanthoudakis, former president of Norshield Financial Group, remains at large.

Ms. Charest, who died in 2004 from complications suffered during plastic surgery, was never charged.

The first allegations against her and Mr. Weinberg surfaced in 1999, when Cinar was on top of Canadian entertainment and had $1.5-billion in market capitalization. The company was accused of falsifying the identities of scriptwriters to qualify for millions in Canadian content subsidies.

Later that year, the couple were accused of plagiarism and using company funds to pay their nanny and renovate their home. Executives were accused of funnelling $122-million of company money to an offshore account.

The Quebec Securities Commission imposed the harshest penalties in history on the couple, fining them $2-million. Close to 2,000 retail investors lost millions in the scandal.

Ronald Weinberg, the former president of Cinar, the once highly successful animation company at the centre of a multi-million-dollar fraud scandal, has given himself up to police.

2011-03-11T09:01:00.001Z

One week after police issued a warrant for his arrest, Ronald Weinberg, the former president of Cinar, the once highly successful animation company at the centre of a multi-million-dollar fraud scandal, has given himself up to police.

Mr. Weinberg, 59, was taken into custody by Sûreté du Quebec officers late Thursday night at Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau airport after arriving on a flight from the Dominican Republic. He is to appear in court on Friday.

Once a powerful figure in the entertainment business, Mr. Weinberg has been a fugitive since police issued an arrest warrant for him and three other company executives last week. The four face a total of 36 fraud and forgery-related charges in a bizarre tale dating back to 1998 that saw the producer of animated children’s television show get mixed up with allegations of forgery and offshore bank accounts in the Bahamas.

Police say Mr. Weinberg and Cinar’s former chief financial officer, Hasanain Panju, were allegedly involved in redirecting company funds to offshore accounts without the board’s consent. According to the arrest warrants, Mr. Panju and Mr. Weinberg used “deceit, falsehood and other fraudulent means” to allegedly drain the company funds.

The former president of investment firm Mount Real, Lino Pasquale Matteo, was an important associate who allegedly used his company to cover the scam, police allege.

Mr. Panju and Mr. Matteo appeared in court shortly after their arrest last week and were each released on $50,000 bail.

The fourth man, John Xanthoudakis, former president of Norshield Financial Group and an associate of Mr. Weinberg’s, still remains at large. He is considered by police as a key figure in helping to set up the alleged fraud. Police refused to confirm whether they were in contact with Mr. Xanthoudakis’ lawyers in order to arrange for his arrest.

Investigators have been examining the relationship Sports Direct founder Mike Ashley had with Iceland's banks

2011-03-11T01:51:00.001Z

close links between the bank and one of its major clients and investors was key to the 2,300-page report ordered by the Icelandic parliament.

Loans: Investigators have been examining the relationship Sports Direct founder Mike Ashley had with Iceland's banks

SFO investigators have been examining the relationship Sports Direct founder Mike Ashley had with Iceland’s banks.

The Newcastle United chief was a depositor there and the SFO examined whether he might also have taken out loans. It is not known whether he withdrew money from Kaupthing before it collapsed.

Investigators also want to know whether Chris Ronnie, the former chief executive of rival JJB Sports, may have indirectly received money from any loan to Ashley.

Kaupthing financed Sports Direct’s acquisition of stakes in Blacks Leisure in 2006, and JJB two years later.

The bank also advised Ashley on his 2007 acquisition of his football club.

Sports Direct denied that anyone connected with the firm was an SFO target.

A number of other leading figures in British commerce are also under investigation. The SFO is looking at why some of Kaupthing’s clients were able to take large loans backed with minimal collateral and deferred interest payments.

It has discovered that Kaupthing moved its operations to the UK after backing from Russian oligarchs ran dry. Despite this background, the Financial Services Authority gave the bank a licence to offer deposit accounts to British savers. It still owes the UK Treasury £2.5billion.

CHAMPAGNE BASH PUT ON ICE BY BILLIONAIRE
Vincent Tchenguiz abandoned a lavish party on his super-yacht last night as he faced a major inquiry into his links with collapsed Icelandic bank Kaupthing.

The billionaire investor was expected to host a champagne bash on the £10million Veni, Vidi, Vici during the high-profile Mipim property jamboree in Cannes.

But the social event was quietly cancelled while the 54-year-old spent the day in a ‘war cabinet’ in the boardroom of his opulent Mayfair mansion with a team of solicitors and financiers to discuss the consequences of the investigation, following his arrest on Wednesday.

Mr Tchenguiz broke off from his meeting to speak to the Daily Mail at his £2million home behind the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square. He said: ‘I cannot really comment on the arrest. There are no charges.

‘You are aware we have a civil action pending and it may well be linked to that. But I cannot say any more.’

The Icelandic report identified Robert Tchenguiz as ‘the largest debtor’ in Kaupthing as well as a shareholder in Exista, an investment company that was the biggest shareholder in Kaupthing.

Robert, 50, had borrowed a staggering £1.7billion and the report noted: ‘The big increase in loan facilities to Tchenguiz from January 2007 until October 2008 is noteworthy, in light of the fact that in late 2007 many of Tchenguiz’s companies started going downhill.’

It also pointed out that the bank continued to lend him money to repay loans being demanded by other banks.

It said: ‘It seems that the boundaries between the interests of the banks and the interests of their biggest shareholders were often blurred and that the banks put more emphasis on backing up their owners than can be considered normal.’

The fraud office will call on many of the 30,000 individuals and organisations who lost a collective £2.4billion to give evidence.

The Tchenguiz arrests are thought to be the tip of the iceberg.

Both deny any wrongdoing, saying in a joint statement this week: ‘We were arrested earlier this morning [Wednesday] and are being questioned with regard to matters relating to our relationship with Kaupthing Bank.’

federal grand jury has accused an Orange County couple of stealing $130 million from a consortium of banks

2011-03-11T01:49:00.001Z

federal grand jury has accused an Orange County couple of stealing $130 million from a consortium of banks, including Bank of America, by inflating the value of their importing company's assets.

Thomas Chia Fu and his wife, Cheri L. Shyu, were arrested Thursday at their home in Newport Coast.

The couple owned an Anaheim company called Galleria USA Inc., which imported home decor items from China and sold them in the United States. They defrauded the banks by exaggerating — by as much as 100 times — the value of their company's accounts receivables and inventory, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles.

The couple are accused of inflating the figure to boost the amount they could draw from a revolving line of credit.

"The $130-million figure is losses actually suffered by the banks," Mrozek said. "That money is gone, and we and other authorities have been trying to track it down."

Fu, 61, and Shyu, 48, were accused in an indictment of submitting fabricated invoices and other records to persuade the banks to continue to lend them money in 2008 and 2009.

The nine bank fraud counts each carry a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison. The case was investigated by the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the FBI and the Secret Service.

The Securities and Exchange Commission claims that instead of putting the investors' $47.3 million into a lucrative currency-trading scheme he promised, Beckman and his wife used the money to fund a lifestyle of the rich and infamous.

2011-03-10T21:48:00.001Z

The retiree, the water plant operator and the nurse anesthetist didn't know each other. The only thing they had in common: They put their money and their trust in the hands of investment guru Jason Bo-Alan Beckman.

The three, along with 140 other investors, lost it all. The Securities and Exchange Commission claims that instead of putting the investors' $47.3 million into a lucrative currency-trading scheme he promised, Beckman and his wife used the money to fund a lifestyle of the rich and infamous.

On Tuesday, a federal judge froze the Beckmans' assets and appointed a receiver. The hearing came a day after SEC lawyers filed a civil case against Beckman, his wife, Hollie Beckman, and Beckman's Minneapolis company, Oxford Private Client Group.

The SEC says he lied to investors to get their money, then misused the funds when they came in.

"Investors placed their trust in Beckman, putting their life savings in his hands, and in return, he defrauded them," SEC attorney Steven Seeger told Chief U.S. District Judge Michael Davis in Minneapolis.

Seeger had sought the freeze, saying a planned sheriff's foreclosure sale of the Beckmans' Plymouth home needed to be stopped because the home — valued at $1.25 million — was bought with swindled money. The lawyer told the judge that seizing it was "a constructive first step for holding him accountable for defrauding so many people."

But David Hashmall, a lawyer for Beckman, told the judge there was no

immediate need to freeze assets, and he claimed his client has been cooperating with SEC investigators for several months.
"There's another side of the story," Hashmall told the judge. "Mr. Beckman denies any wrongdoing."

Hashmall grumbled that he had little time to prepare for the hearing because it came only 24 hours after the government filed its 44-page complaint. He said that in light of Beckman's cooperation, "It really is unseemly for the SEC ... to proceed in a way that I believe is quite unfair."

"We have no fire to put out," he said.

Beckman, 41, was an investment counselor who ran Oxford PCG out of the same Minneapolis mansion where Trevor Cook engineered a $194 million fraud scheme that landed him in federal prison for 25 years. The SEC says Beckman was a major fundraiser for Cook, drumming up a quarter of Cook's business.

Beckman's alleged scheme involved investments in currency trading. Victims said he promised them big returns, little risk and the ability to withdraw their money at any time.

Instead, the SEC claims, Beckman ran a Ponzi scheme.

The government claims at least $7 million of investors' money ended up in the Beckmans' pockets, fueling a lavish lifestyle that included posh homes in three states, a Jaguar, two Land Rovers, two Mercedes, a luxury suite at Minnesota Wild hockey games, country club payments and other ritzy outlays.

The SEC's motion for an asset freeze said the Beckmans "literally spent more on resorts — $36,539 — than some investors have left to their name."

The government claims Beckman's wrongdoing included his silence. Seeger told the judge that Beckman admitted in a sworn deposition in October that he hadn't trusted Cook and had harbored concerns about the man's business practices, yet continued taking money from investors.

As the lawyers argued, Beckman sat by Hashmall's side, looking straight ahead. Every now and then, he nodded in agreement with something his lawyer told the judge.

Seated in the front row of the courtroom were a handful of the 143 investors Beckman is accused of defrauding. Some of them, approached after the hearing, declined to comment.

Some had provided affidavits in the case that the government considers heartbreaking. For example, Larry Paige, 62, a water plant operator from Robbinsdale, wrote that after hearing Beckman's sales pitch in May 2007, he liquidated part of his individual retirement account and invested $99,300 in Beckman's currency-trading scheme.

He's not seen a penny of it since, he wrote.

Police Professional :: News :: £48m money laundering gang jailed

2011-02-24T07:30:00.001Z

Police Professional :: News :: £48m money laundering gang jailed: "gang of criminals who laundered more than £48 million of other organised gangs’ criminal profits were jailed at Isleworth Crown Court yesterday following an international investigation by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

The gang used an online money transfer business as a front to clean up huge amounts of criminal cash which was sent to Dubai. It is believed the money was then sent to Pakistan.

Tanveer Hussain Jaffery and Naveed Ahmad, both of Stoke-on-Trent, were the ringleaders of a gang who ran an online money transfer business called R2PK.com. Coded text messages were sent by criminals based all over the UK and couriers were dispatched to collect hundreds of thousands of pounds in cash.

The two couriers, Mohammed Umer Farooq and Syed Yasir Abbas Shah, both of East London, collected the dirty money which was then deposited into different branches of UK banks in amounts of £25,000 or less, allowing the gang to stay below the radar - a process known to law enforcement officials as smurfing."

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Gunmen storm Afghan bank

2011-02-19T15:46:00.001Z

"Gunmen and suicide bombers stormed a bank in eastern Afghanistan, killing at least nine people in the latest in a spate of attacks on high-profile urban targets.

A senior police officer was among dozens of people wounded in the assault on a branch of Kabul Bank , Afghanistan’s biggest private lender, in the eastern city of Jalalabad, an intelligence source said.

“I saw a group of armed men who rammed into the bank and started firing,” said Abdul Faqir, a resident.

Another witness, Sediqullah Momand, told Reuters: 'They shot the bank tellers first. I saw dead and wounded people inside the bank.'

Witnesses said the attackers were dressed in police or army uniform, a tactic often used by insurgents.

The Taliban claimed responsibility, saying it had deployed three suicide bombers to take part in the attack on Saturday. The intelligence source said at least two suicide bombers were involved."

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Serepisos: a step closer to bankruptcy

2011-02-19T15:43:00.001Z

Serepisos: a step closer to bankruptcy | Stuff.co.nz: "Beleaguered property tycoon Terry Serepisos has been given two weeks to come up with a way to pay $6.1 million to stave off possible bankruptcy action.

FM Custodians applied for bankruptcy notices and was issued them in the High Court at Wellington yesterday. Once the notices are served on Mr Serepisos, he commits an act of bankruptcy if he does not pay or reach a compromise with FM Custodians.

Don McBeath, chairman of the firm overseeing loans to Mr Serepisos' companies, said the notices were issued as a precaution. Discussions were continuing with Mr Serepisos and it was hoped an arrangement for payment could still be reached. No decision had been made yet on whether to bankrupt Mr Serepisos if he did not pay, Mr McBeath said.

Mr Serepisos, speaking from Adelaide, where he was about to watch the Phoenix play last night, did not know of the bankruptcy notices until told of them by The Dominion Post. He said the legal action was the result of a personal vendetta."

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Luxury BMWs a debt trap

2011-02-19T15:41:00.001Z

Luxury BMWs a debt trap | Herald Sun: "BMW is pursuing hundreds of Australians in bankruptcy proceedings over luxury vehicles collectively worth up to $18 million, as dreams of enjoying opulent lifestyles crash.

The social aspirants now face losing their luxury vehicles and possibly their homes to repay massive debts to car financing giant BMW Finance.

The company took 226 Australians to court last year, up almost 37 per cent on the previous year, while overall national bankruptcy figures remained stable. A further 21 actions have been launched this year.

BMW Finance offers loans for all makes of luxury cars under several schemes, including a fixed instalment scheme that ends with a big 'balloon', or final repayment.

One Victorian man owes the company $167,000, while a Queensland man owes $190,000 for a car loan he could not afford.

The popular BMW X53 diesel executive four-wheel drive sells for about $114,000, while the BMW 520d sedan is about $100,000, but the company lends money for other makes, including an entry-level Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2 at $400,000."

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Local Armenians fear rush to judgment after gang crackdown | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times

2011-02-19T00:57:00.001Z

Local Armenians fear rush to judgment after gang crackdown | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times: "Many Armenians in Glendale are fearing a rush to judgment after local and federal authorities instituted a major crackdown on Armenian organized crime that included allegedly defrauding the public of $20 million.

A total of 74 people were arrested Wednesday on fraud and racketeering charges contained in federal indictments unveiled at Glendale police headquarters. The indictments allege that members of the Armenian Power gang engaged in white-collar crimes to defraud the public."

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Court aide says Khodorkovsky verdict 'forced on judge' | Russia | RIA Novosti

2011-02-15T03:24:00.001Z

Court aide says Khodorkovsky verdict 'forced on judge' | Russia | RIA Novosti: "An aide to the Moscow judge who imposed a jail sentence on former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky in December has claimed the verdict was determined by 'higher' powers.
Aide Natalya Vasilyeva said the original verdict by Khamovniki Court Judge Viktor Danilkin was 'replaced' and forced upon him against his will.
'Higher echelons didn't like the verdict, so it was replaced by another one,' she said in an interview with the Dozhd cable TV channel. She said the new verdict and sentence was the work of Moscow City Court officials.
Vasilyeva said she had no doubt she would be dismissed over her statement. She said however that she had no choice but to go public after becoming 'disappointed' with the reality of Russia's often-criticized judicial system.
However, Danilkin dismissed the report as slander."

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Vladimir Putin 'has £600 million Italianate palace'

2011-02-15T03:18:00.001Z

Vladimir Putin 'has £600 million Italianate palace' - Telegraph: "The claim, made in a letter to Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's president, was boosted on Monday after the Novaya Gazeta newspaper obtained what it said was an authenticated copy of the original contract for the palace signed in 2005 by Vladimir Kozhin, the Russian presidential property manager. Mr Putin, now prime minister, was president at the time.
Set in 74 hectares of prime land near the Black Sea coast with its own vineyard, the palace is reported to be almost eight million square feet and has its own helipad. Other features include an indoor cinema, a summer amphitheatre, a casino, swimming pools, a gym and a clock tower. Sergei Kolesnikov, the businessman who claims the palace is Mr Putin's, has likened the structure to a palace built for Russia's Tsars outside St Petersburg. He said that the Russian prime minister had personally approved the design and materials."

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Ousted despot moved assets out of Europe?

2011-02-15T03:16:00.001Z

Ousted despot moved assets out of Europe? - The Times of India: "Ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has reportedly moved his family assets from European banks to institutions in Gulf region after Swiss authorities took steps to freeze his foreign accounts.

'We're aware of some urgent conversations within the Mubarak family about how to save these assets,' a senior intelligence was quoted as saying by the state-run Iranian channel Press TV.

'We think their financial advisers have moved some of the money around... If he had real money in Zurich, it may be gone by now,' he said.

According to channel, former president is believed to have transferred a fortune to friendly Arab states, including the UAE and Saudi Arabia ."

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Former MP Jim Devine guilty of expenses fraud

2011-02-10T17:50:00.001Z

Former MP Jim Devine guilty of expenses fraud | Reuters: "Devine, 57, the first MP to stand trial after the parliamentary expenses scandal, was convicted on two charges of false accounting at Southwark Crown Court in London.

A jury cleared him of a third charge relating to 360 pounds of taxpayers' money that he sought to pay a cleaner, the Press Association reported.

The former union official and chairman of the Scottish Labour Party, who represented the town of Livingston, east of Edinburgh, was bailed and will be sentenced in four weeks."

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MPs' expenses: Eric Illsley jailed for 12 months

2011-02-10T17:46:00.001Z

MPs' expenses: Eric Illsley jailed for 12 months | Politics | guardian.co.uk: "The former Labour MP Eric Illsley has been jailed for 12 months at Southwark crown court after pleading guilty to charges of false accounting concerning nearly £14,500 in parliamentary expenses.

He was told by Mr Justice Saunders, who is hearing all the cases arising from the expenses scandal: 'These offences were committed in breach of what was the high degree of trust placed in MPs by the authorities in the House of Commons only to make honest claims.

'Beyond that, the commission of the offences which came to light as a result of the police investigation into parliamentary expenses has tarnished the reputation of politicians and parliament.

'It is vital that people feel able to trust our legislators and their use of public funds.'

The judge said Illsley's crimes were less serious than those of former Labour MP David Chaytor, who was jailed for 18 months last month, but he bore a small but significant part of the responsibility for the public's loss of trust in MPs."

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Gang conned investors out of £10m

2011-01-27T16:17:00.001Z

The Press Association: Gang conned investors out of £10m: "Victims paid thousands of pounds to gang members, wrongly believing they would receive a handsome profit for joining the scheme. The six men, described by the police as 'sharks', were involved in a 'premeditated deception' that saw people lose their homes and life savings.
Details of the scam were made public after a judge lifted an order banning reporting of the case. American businessman John Francis Napoli, 51, was due to be sentenced at Southwark Crown Court, London, for his role in the fraud. Judge Anthony Pitts adjourned the hearing until February 17 as Napoli, of Sevenoaks, Kent, has expressed a desire to repay some of the victims' money and is awaiting a loan.
The ringleader of the gang was Vibhawa Fonseka, a Sri Lankan from a well-known family who targeted members of his own community. Detective Chief Inspector Robin Cross of the Metropolitan Police said Fonseka had behaved in a 'despicable' manner for abusing his position of trust."

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Gerry's personal dealer and the Freddie gang link - National News, Frontpage - Herald.ie

2010-12-15T17:33:00.001Z

Gerry's personal dealer and the Freddie gang link - National News, Frontpage - Herald.ie: "DRUG DEALERS working for ‘Fat’ Freddie Thompson supplied cocaine to radio legend Gerry Ryan.
The Herald can reveal today that Gerry’s personal dealer was directly involved with Freddie’s coke empire. Gerry preferred to meet the dealer himself, and they would often meet in the car park of a landmark West Dublin pub.
However, no criminal investigation is going to be carried out to try and charge the dealer, who regularly supplied Ryan with the Class A drug in the years leading up to his death. Gardai believe that the cocaine which was found in Gerry Ryan's system was supplied by a junior member of Thompson's Crumlin-Drimnagh drug gang.
It is believed that the cocaine was brought into the country through Christy Kinahan's drug supply channels before being dispersed through Thompson's distribution network.
A source has told the Herald that a criminal investigation like the one carried out after the death of model Katy French was 'unlikely' because of the circumstances surrounding their deaths."

WikiLeaks cables: Sinn Féin leaders 'were aware of' Northern Bank heist plans | Politics | The Guardian

2010-12-13T08:48:00.001Z

WikiLeaks cables: Sinn Féin leaders 'were aware of' Northern Bank heist plans Politics The Guardian: "Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness held lengthy negotiations with the former Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern to save the Northern Ireland peace process in the full knowledge that the IRA was planning to carry out the biggest bank robbery in its history, according to leaked US cables passed to WikiLeaks.
Ahern, who was instrumental in drawing up the 1998 Good Friday agreement, judged that the two Sinn Féin leaders were aware of plans for the £26.5m Northern Bank robbery in 2004 because they were members of the 'IRA military command' with a deep knowledge of its operations.
The US cables also reveal that:
• The Irish government believed Britain had a 'valuable source of information' at a senior level in the republican movement.
• Adams argued that the IRA would have to be 'taken out of the equation' during negotiations which led the organisation to declare a formal end to its armed campaign in July 2005.
The revelations are published as Adams seeks to broaden Sinn Féin's appeal in the Irish Republic. The Sinn Féin president is abandoning his Westminster seat to stand in the forthcoming general election amid hopes of a breakthrough as voters register anger with Ireland's mainstream political parties after the country was forced to apply to the EU and IMF for a bailout.
Ahern's concerns about Sinn Féin and the IRA are highlighted in cables which describe a challenging period in the peace process as London and Dublin sought to restore the power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland. Unionist suspicions about the intentions of the republican movement were fuelled when the IRA robbed the headquarters of Northern Bank in Belfast in December 2004."

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Bernard Madoff may not be allowed to attend son Mark's funeral - Telegraph

2010-12-13T08:44:00.001Z

Bernard Madoff may not be allowed to attend son Mark's funeral - Telegraph: "Mark Madoff, 46, was found hanging from a dog leash in his $6 million (£3.8 million) New York apartment on the second anniversary of his father's arrest.
His father is currently serving a 150-year sentence at the Butner Federal Correctional Institution in North Carolina after confessing to the biggest investment fraud in US history, a decades-long Ponzi scheme that took billions from investors.
Inmates there are only allowed to attend a family member's funeral if they have less than two years left of their sentence. As a white collar criminal Madoff can apply for permission but, according to the prison, a visit would only be granted if it was 'clearly in the public interest.'"

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Versace was allegedly killed "over debts" he had with the Godfathers. Versace family denounced the claims as "false and shameful".

2010-12-06T08:19:00.002Z

50-year-old Versace was gunned down on the steps of his Miami apartment in 1997 by serial killer Andrew Cunanan.
According to a new book by Giuseppe Di Bella, a former member of the Calabrian Mafia known as the N'drangheta, Versace was allegedly killed "over debts" he had with the Godfathers.
In the book Metastasi, Di Bella alleges that Versace was being used by Godfather Paolo De Stefano to launder money.
Di Bella told investigative journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi:"There were rivers of money from drugs, extortion, protection rackets, loan sharking, mountains of money and it had to be made clean.
"Bars, restaurants, property and luxury goods were used but also clean businesses like that of Versace."
Di Bella also describes how the N'drangheta plotted to steal Versace's ashes from a cemetery near his family home on Lake Como on New Year's Eve 1997 but it was never carried out.
Giancarlo Capaldo, of the Rome-based anti Mafia department, said: "We have opened a file into what Di Bella says – he is an informer and his information in the past has always proved correct."
In a statement the Versace family denounced the claims as "false and shameful".
"We reserve the right to protect the memory and reputation of Gianni Versace in civil and criminal courts," the statement added.DISCLAIMER Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder

Sir Fred Goodwin renews pressure on FSA to publish RBS report - Telegraph

2010-12-06T07:49:00.001Z

Sir Fred Goodwin renews pressure on FSA to publish RBS report - Telegraph: "However, sources close to the regulator last night indicated that the approval of Sir Fred is unlikely to be enough. It is understood that the FSA would only consider opening up the report, compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers, if a 'legal view' could be established that it could do so within the exemptions of the law.
Under the Financial Services and Markets Act of 2000, it is a criminal offence to make confidential information public. However, there are exemptions which allow for the disclosure of information 'for the purpose of facilitating the carrying out of a public function' or when 'permitted by regulations made by the Treasury under this section'.
The exemptions also indicate that disclosures can be made under conditions such as 'obtaining consents' from 'whom the primary recipient [the FSA] obtained the information' or 'to whom it relates'. This means that consent from RBS is also likely to be needed."

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NSW police and US Secret Service swoop on Australian counterfeit money ring > News > ProPrint

2010-11-26T17:01:00.002Z

NSW police and US Secret Service swoop on Australian counterfeit money ring > News > ProPrint: "Three 'large commercial printing machines' and more than 800 counterfeit $50 notes have been seized in a series of raids across Sydney’s eastern and southwestern suburbs.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the New South Wales State Crime Command carried out the raids, arresting six men in Sydney and one man in the United States.
The raids were part of an effort to dismantle an organised crime syndicate producing counterfeit currency. The US Secret Service, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), the New South Wales Crime Commission and the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service were also involved in the investigation."

Carpenters union boss Michael Forde sentenced to 11 years in prison | Irish News | IrishCentral

2010-11-24T01:20:00.001Z

Carpenters union boss Michael Forde sentenced to 11 years in prison | Irish News | IrishCentral: "Ex-Carpenters union boss Michael Forde was sentenced to 11 years in prison after pleading guilty to corruption.
The main witness against Forde and other union leaders was a former Irish construction company owner James Murray who admitted he had bribed Forde with $100,000 dollars to look the other way on union jobs.
During his time as head of the heavily Irish Local 608 union, Forde allowed the hiring of many illegal immigrant Irish carpenters and paid them less wages and pocketed the difference with the union rate."

Ireland Risks Bank Run, El-Erian Says: Tom Keene - BusinessWeek

2010-11-23T19:42:00.001Z

Ireland Risks Bank Run, El-Erian Says: Tom Keene - BusinessWeek: "Ireland risks a “major bank run” unless European officials act quickly to calm the financial turmoil in the nation, Pacific Investment Management Co. Co- Chief Investment Officer Mohamed A. El-Erian said.
“The numbers so far have shown that the Irish banking system has been bleeding deposits,” El-Erian said in Bloomberg Radio interview on “Bloomberg Surveillance” with Tom Keene. “It will seriously undermine the prosperity of this country for a generation. The first thing they must do is execute on what they announced this weekend -- which is a big external aid package and steps by the Irish government.”
Ireland’s government was forced on Nov. 21 into applying for a bailout from the European Union and International Monetary Fund, mainly due to concerns about the country’s banking system. Lenders had become more reliant on emergency European Central Bank funding after being frozen out of wholesale markets. The amount of ECB loans to the country’s banks rose 7.3 percent to 130 billion euros in October from the previous month, Ireland’s Central Bank said on Nov. 1. The data include both international and domestic banks operating in Ireland."

March of the Euro police: The shocking powers of prosecution EU has over all of us | Mail Online

2010-11-22T19:35:00.001Z

March of the Euro police: The shocking powers of prosecution EU has over all of us | Mail Online: "full extent of the police and criminal prosecution powers that the European Union has over British citizens can be revealed today.
A Mail on Sunday investigation has uncovered an alarming array of new EU controls over justice and home affairs for which no one has voted, and most are unknown to the public.
These include:
Europol, the £60 million-a-year European criminal intelligence agency, whose officers have diplomatic immunity.
An 800-strong paramilitary police force called the European Gendarmerie Force.
The European Arrest Warrant, which now allows British citizens to be seized in the UK and sent without appeal to foreign jails for months or years without bail while awaiting trial."

7-1/2 year sentence in fed home-sales fraud case - BusinessWeek

2010-11-20T12:53:00.001Z

7-1/2 year sentence in fed home-sales fraud case - BusinessWeek: "Broken Arrow home builder has been sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison for wire fraud involving false loan applications for customers buying houses he had built.
A news release Thursday said Gerald Wayne Snow Sr., 68, was also ordered to serve 3 years of supervised release after his stay in prison, to pay restitution of $124,396 and to forfeit $2,560,398 to the federal government.
The release said Snow was convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and five counts of wire fraud.
Snow and his son were accused of inducing customers to buy homes by promising that the Snows would make down payments and pay closing costs, as well as providing cash back. The indictment charging Snow said he then conspired to submit loan applications falsely stating the source of down payments and closing costs, inflating the costs of the homes and concealing the cash-back payments."

Why Are Bernie Madoff's Wife, Sons Still Free? - ABC News

2010-11-20T12:51:00.001Z

Why Are Bernie Madoff's Wife, Sons Still Free? - ABC News: "Victims of Bernie Madoff applauded the news Thursday that two close associates of the convicted Ponzi scammer had been arrested, but asked why a group of people even closer to Madoff – his wife, sons and brother -- remained free almost two years after Madoff's multi-billion-dollar investment fraud was exposed.

'It's about time!' said Madoff victim Adele Fox, reacting to the arrest of Annette Bongiorno and Joann Crupi, who worked for Madoff's investment firm for decades. Both women have been charged with fraud, conspiracy and tax evasion. 'But what about Peter Madoff?' asked Fox, 87, who says she lost a large sum to Madoff's pyramid scheme. 'What about Ruth and the sons? Do you mean to say they didn't know?'"

Man sentenced to 25 years in stock fraud case | Philadelphia Inquirer | 11/20/2010

2010-11-20T12:50:00.001Z

Man sentenced to 25 years in stock fraud case | Philadelphia Inquirer | 11/20/2010: "George Georgiou, 40, was convicted in February of manipulating stocks of four publicly traded companies, including one that was trying to build an ethanol plant and another that was conducting research into Lou Gehrig's disease.
He was also convicted of causing the collapse of a financial-management firm in the Bahamas.
The sentence handed down by U.S. District Court Judge Robert F. Kelly, was less than the 30 years the Philadelphia U.S. Attorney's Office had sought.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Louis D. Lappen and Assistant U.S. Attorney Derek A. Cohen had pressed for the lengthier sentence, in part because they contended that Georgiou committed perjury during his testimony at the nearly three-week-long trial. The jury took less than 90 minutes to return a guilty verdict, the prosecutors noted.
The chief witness against Georgiou was Kevin Waltzer, a Bucks County man who had masterminded a separate $44 million fraud. Waltzer, a business associate of Georgiou's, became a government informant when federal investigators closed in on him. Waltzer pleaded guilty in February and was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Georgiou, who immigrated from Cyprus when he was a child, used offshore brokerage accounts in the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, and Canada for the stock fraud. By trading the stocks among participants in the fraud, he was able to artificially inflate prices."

Canadian charged with fraud after faking cancer

2010-11-20T12:49:00.001Z

Canadian charged with fraud after faking cancer: "Ontario man has been charged with fraud after allegedly faking terminal brain cancer to bilk his friends and family.
Police say Christopher Gordon made the cancer claim in October 2009. His friends then organized a fundraiser and collected US$2,900.
Police say Gordon told family and friends this month he did not have brain cancer after he spent the money.
Gordon has been charged with one count of fraud under US$4,900. He is scheduled to appear in court Friday.
He is the third Canadian to face such charges recently. Earlier this month, Jessica Ann Leeder pleaded guilty to defrauding her workplace of thousands of dollars for fundraising for a cancer she faked. Ashley Kirilow also pleaded guilty this month to one count of fraud over US$4,900 for her cancer hoax."

US court blocks Anglo bid to force property sale - The Irish Times - Sat, Nov 20, 2010

2010-11-20T12:47:00.001Z

US court blocks Anglo bid to force property sale - The Irish Times - Sat, Nov 20, 2010: "MASSACHUSETTS court has blocked Anglo Irish Bank’s forced sale of a laboratory, retail and office complex near MIT college and Harvard University in Cambridge in its attempt to recoup a loan of $180 million (€131 million).
The owners of One Kendall Square, a complex of 11 buildings, secured a preliminary injunction against Anglo blocking the sale of the properties and the bank’s foreclosure proceedings against them pending the final judgment of the court to resolve the stalemate.
Beal and Rockwood Capital claimed they have not missed any repayments on the loans.
The bank brought the action on the basis that the owners had breached the loan-to-value agreement on their borrowings, which prevents the debt rising above 75 per cent of the property’s value.
The nationalised bank said the Massachusetts property had declined in value during the economic downturn and that the owners cannot repay the debt in full. The injunction granted by the superior court of Suffolk County stops the sale of the property pending final judgment in the action taken by the owners against Anglo, and up to April 6th, 2011."

Prince Charles's friend Paul Castle commits suicide after business hit by recession | Mail Online

2010-11-20T12:44:00.001Z

Prince Charles's friend Paul Castle commits suicide after business hit by recession | Mail Online: "property tycoon who made and lost at least two fortunes and played polo with Prince Charles has committed suicide.Three-times married Paul Castle – who was due to wed for a fourth time –walked out of his London office and threw himself under a Tube train.The self-made businessman, 54, included a Michelin-starred restaurant in his multi-million-pound empire which had been buffeted by the recession."

Audit Office will recover after ex-head's jailing, says AM

2010-11-20T12:43:00.001Z

BBC News - Audit Office will recover after ex-head's jailing, says AM: "credibility of the Wales Audit Office will not suffer long-term as a result of the jailing of its ex-auditor general, says a senior assembly member.
Jeremy Colman is beginning an eight month jail term for possessing more than 170 indecent images of children.
Chair of the assembly's public accounts committee, Jonathan Morgan, said a 'golden future' lay ahead for the office Colman formerly led.
Colman, 62, admitted 15 separate offences.
Mr Morgan admitted to BBC Wales that he had been 'gobsmacked' when the allegations against Mr Colman surfaced.
He said: 'That's the only way I can describe it because I would never have thought that he would have committed those offences.
'But I don't think the (audit office's) credibility has been damaged because these are the acts of one man.'

Jonathan Morgan AM said he was 'gobsmacked' to learn of the charges against Colman The auditor general for Wales heads the Wales Audit Office, which is independent of government and is responsible for the annual audit of some £20bn of public expenditure.
Reports it prepares on the Welsh Assembly Government's accounts are scrutinised by the public accounts committee."

Ireland's four-year plan to be published Tue-report | Reuters

2010-11-20T12:42:00.001Z

WRAPUP 1-Ireland's four-year plan to be published Tue-report | Reuters: "Ireland's four-year plan to reduce its deficit will be published on Tuesday, ahead of any international financial aid package, the Irish Times newspaper reported on Saturday.
International Monetary Fund and European Commission officials are in Dublin to discuss a bailout to help Ireland cope with its struggling banks after concerns about bank liabilities and plans to restructure eurozone debt sent borrowing costs rocketing.
Last month, Ireland doubled to 15 billion euros ($21 billion) the amount of money it reckoned was needed to bring its deficit under control by 2014, a move the finance minister said was to ensure the country would not need a bailout. But that failed to calm jittery markets.
Ireland's central bank chief acknowledged this week the country needed a loan running into tens of billions of euros to shore up a banking sector that has grown dependent on ECB funds and seen an exodus of deposits over the past six months."

Exactly how safe are your Irish savings? - Telegraph

2010-11-20T12:40:00.001Z

Exactly how safe are your Irish savings? - Telegraph: "Over the past two years Irish, Dutch, Indian, Turkish and Cypriot banks, among others, have offered far more competitive deals to UK savers than many home-grown banks, particularly on longer term fixed-rate accounts. As a result, millions of us have money tied up overseas.
After a weekend when Ireland's economic problems have again dominated the headlines, many savers may now be worried about how safe their money is. It is important to remember that even in these difficult times, bank collapses remain rare; but anyone with money in a bank, in the UK, Europe or beyond, should ensure that they know how to claim compensation if a bank did go bust."