mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
|
 Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 11:23 am Post subject: Fraud 'Directly Related' to Financial Crisis Probed |
 |
|
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/Economy/story?id=6855179&page=1
| Quote: |
The FBI has opened investigations into more than 500 cases of alleged corporate fraud, including 38 that involve major firms and are "directly related" to the national economic crisis, FBI Deputy Director John Pistole told Congress today.
FBI Says 38 Firms Directly Involved in Current Financial Crisis Could Expand to Over 100 firms Currently Over 500 On
The surge in white-collar investigations is putting such a strain on the FBI that Pistole said the bureau is considering reassigning agents from national security, which has been the bureau's priority since the 9/11 attacks.
"The FBI has more than 530 open corporate fraud investigations, including 38 corporate fraud and financial institution matters directly related to the current financial crisis," Pistole told the Senate Judiciary Committee today.
The 38 companies, he said, "are significantly large companies, businesses everyone knows about but I cannot comment publicly."
Pistole's comments suggested widespread criminal activity among many of the nation's corporate giants.
"These are significantly large, similar to Enron," Pistole said. The number of firms under scrutiny could eventually top 100, as the investigations widen, he said. |
The can start with the bonuses given to banksters by banksters with public funds. Here is a letter from NY AG Coumo to Barney Frank:
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/02/ny-ag-cuomo-letter-to-barney-frank-on.html
| Quote: |
"One disturbing question that must be answered is whether Merrill Lynch and Bank of America timed the bonuses in such a way as to force taxpayers to pay for them through the deal funding. We plan to require top officials at both Merrill Lynch and Bank of America to answer this question and to provide justifications for the massive bonuses they paid ahead of their massive losses....
What my Office has learned thus far concerning the allocation of the nearly $4 billion in Merrill Lynch bonuses is nothing short of staggering. Some analysts have wrongly claimed that individual bonuses were actually quite modest and thus legitimate because dividing the $3.6 billion over thousands upon thousands of employees results in relatively small amounts estimated at approximately $91,000 per employee. In fact, Merrill chose to do the opposite. While more than 39 thousand Merrill employees received bonuses from the pool, the vast majority of these funds were disproportionately distributed to a small number of individuals.
...
[T]hese payments and their curious timing raise serious questions as to whether the Merrill Lynch and Bank of America Boards of Directors were derelict in their duties and violated their fiduciary obligations. We will also continue to examine whether senior officials at both companies violated their own fiduciary obligations to shareholders. If they did, this raises additional serious issues with regard to the inappropriate use of taxpayer funds." |
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
