Bernard Madoff, the Mafia, and Naked Short Selling

[David Guyatt]

Part of me does expect to wake up one morning and learn that the entire Bush crime family has relocated to its very own sovereign Paraguayan Colonia Dignidad.

Wakey wakey! :wavey:

http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v7...000170.htm

NEWS BRIEF: ""Bush Buys Land in Northern Paraguay",
Prensa Latina, Latin American News Agency,
October 13, 2006

"Buenos Aires, Oct 13 (Prensa Latina) An Argentine official regarded the intention of the George W. Bush family to settle on the Acuifero Guarani (Paraguay) as surprising, besides being a bad signal for the governments of the region. Luis D Elia, undersecretary for the Social Habitat in the Argentine Federal Planning Ministry, issued a memo partially reproduced by digital INFOBAE.com, in which he spoke of the purchase by Bush of a 98,842-acre farm in northern Paraguay, between Brazil and Bolivia. The news circulated Thursday in non-official sources in Asuncion, Paraguay.."

Another news story provides more information.

NEWS BRIEF: ""Escape to Paraguay? Rumors of Bush Land Deal ", Political Cortex, 10/16/12006

"At least two sources, including Upsidedownworld and Prensa Latina, report rumors of a Bush family purchase of land in northern Paraguay.

"Upsidedownworld writes: "The Governor of Alto Paraguay, Erasmo Rodríguez Acosta has admitted to hearing that George Bush Sr. owns land in the Chaco region of Paraguay, in Paso de Patria. Acosta says that rumor has it that Bush owns near to 70 thousand hectares (173,000 acres) as part of an ecological reserve and/or ranch. However, the governor said he had no documents to prove the rumor."

"Prensa Latina, writing on October 13, gives a similar story but names George W. Bush rather than his father: An Argentine official regarded the intention of the George W. Bush family to settle on the Acuifero Guarani (Paraguay) as surprising, besides being a bad signal for the governments of the region...Luis D Elia, undersecretary for the Social Habitat in the Argentine Federal Planning Ministry, issued a memo partially reproduced by digital INFOBAE.com, in which he spoke of the purchase by Bush of a 98,842-acre farm in northern Paraguay, between Brazil and Bolivia."

[Jan Klimkowski]

Part of me does expect to wake up one morning and learn that the entire Bush crime family has relocated to its very own sovereign Paraguayan Colonia Dignidad.

Wakey wakey! :wavey:

http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v7...000170.htm

NEWS BRIEF: ""Bush Buys Land in Northern Paraguay",
Prensa Latina, Latin American News Agency,
October 13, 2006

Yup. I know.

But there's a problem.

The Bush Crime Family hasn't relocated to Paraguay yet. They're still up to their nefarious tricks in the good 'ole US of A...

[Jan Klimkowski]

Yup - the regulators were obviously warned not to touch Madoff for years. His fund was off limits to the regulators. Verboten.

Most likely because it was a member of the species Nugan Hand.

This piece quotes the court-appointed trustee.

Madoff didn't buy securities for clients: trustee

1 day ago

NEW YORK (AFP) — Former Wall Street financier and alleged multi-billion-dollar fraudster Bernard Madoff never bought securities for his clients, said Friday the trustee charged with liquidating Madoff's business.

The former Nasdaq stock exchange chairman, accused of masterminding a 50-billion-dollar pyramid fraud that promised huge returns to investors in return for their capital, appears to have only used his clients to pay off other customers, confirmed court-appointed trustee Irving Picard.

"We have no evidence to indicate securities were purchased for customer accounts," Picard told AFP, recounting what he told a federal court hearing earlier in the day.

Madoff was arrested December 11 after allegedly confessing to his two sons and to the FBI that he had run the giant scam known as a Ponzi scheme, where new investors' money is stolen to pay profits to existing clients.

So far, Madoff is the only person charged in what could be the biggest such fraud in Wall Street history, which has slammed wealthy individuals as well as global banks and charities.

Picard's statements about not buying securities indicate the investment business Madoff ran for his clients was completely fraudulent from the outset, as he did not make investments.

Picard also said so far his efforts have recovered 650 million dollars out of the 50 billion dollars lost in the alleged scam.

US authorities announced earlier this month they had delayed indicting Madoff until March 13, stoking speculation that the former financier was preparing a guilty plea.

Currently Madoff is free on 10 million dollars bail, but confined to his New York apartment under round-the-clock surveillance.

In January a judge refused to lock up Madoff even after it was revealed he sent out more than a million dollars worth of jewelry to friends and relatives in violation of a court-ordered freeze on all his assets.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/art...iJklFK1n3g

[Magda Hassan]

The mysterious Bank Madoff

By Lucy Komisar
March 17, 2009
There’s a mysterious “Bank Madoff, New York” that U.S. authorities don’t appear to know about.
International securities clearing houses move trillions of dollars a year for banks and brokerages and are a natural way for crooks to launder and hide ill-gotten gains. So it would be natural for investigators to check the paper trails of Madoff accounts in CSDs (central securities depositories) around the world.
They already know about the one listed in the name of “Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC New York, US broker/dealer.”

But they don’t seem to know about “Bank Madoff, New York.” It appears on a list published by Clearstream, the international clearing and settlement house in Luxembourg. That “bank” has not been publicly mentioned by investigators.

(See the listing on its full page.)
There is no Bank Madoff, New York, listed by the Federal Reserve Board, which compiles information about all American banks. But Clearstream spokesman Bruno Rossignol confirms that Bank Madoff, New York, with the number 7 62619, appears, as indicated above, on its 2004 list of 38,000 banks and securities firms.
Rossignol said, “Neither Bernard Madoff nor his firms were customers of Clearstream.” He explained that the account, published by Clearstream’s Frankfurt office, compiled the names and numbers of international clearing partners and that the Madoff listing “was requested by Euroclear in 1997.” Euroclear, in Brussels, is the other international clearing and settlement house.
“These are references given to Clearstream Bank in Frankfurt by other central securities depositories to provide Clearstream customers with the latest information they need regarding their counterparties,” said Rossignol. “So our customers know when they have to settle a trade to which number they should allocate their order.”
The list was posted on the internet by Wikileaks, a website that specializes in making secret documents public.

However, Euroclear says that Bank Madoff was not its client. Spokesman Denis Peters said, “We’ve had no transactions with that entity, and none of the Madoffs had or have an account with Euroclear.”

He explained, “We checked what we know and we can’t determine any entity with that name with that jurisdiction. What may have happened is that information on a CSD (central securities depository) opening an account for a company named Bank Madoff was communicated to us and we would have communicated to other CSDs.”
He said the number on the account is not a typical Eurclear number. He said, “We’re guessing it’s a code that the CSD that opened the account in the name of Bank Madoff used to identify it.” He explained that CSDs wouldn’t disclose account numbers to other providers, unless there was a transaction that needed to take place. Curiously, on the Clearstream page, it appears in sequence related to the numbers of accounts just before and after.

Peters emphasized, “We would have received information from someplace else and passed it to any other CDS with which we do business. This was done in 1997, and we don’t have any trace of that at this stage.”

Clearstream does have listings for other Madoff entities. Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC New York, with the number 11 00646, is on the same 2004 list. That is the Madoff broker/dealer. Rossignol indicates that it is another “counterparty,” not a Clearstream account. But it’s number on the Clearstream page 646 is both in sequence, relating to the accounts listed before and after, and also the same number given to it by the U.S. CSD, the Depository Trust Company, discussed below.


See full page.
Oddly, out of more than 33,000 accounts, including 2,176 from the U.S., there are only five with “DTC” prefixes, and the four others are all DTC/DTCC company accounts.


A company called Bernard L. Madoff New York, ID 726, Acct No DTC646, created Feb 11, 1999, is listed on a 2001 Clearstream roster of 33,381 accounts. The DTC preface indicates that this is a mirror of the broker/dealer account and is listed with the Depository Trust Company, the U.S. clearing and settlement house. It should logically be the same as the “Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities” company. The DTC confirmed that.





A third Madoff company is Madoff Securities International Limited, 12 Berkeley Street, London. Peters said that the company opened relationships with LCH.Clearnet (a European central counterparty group) and Euroclear, but, “The Madoff entity never activated its account and therefore was forever dormant.”

There’s also a curious anomaly in the Federal Reserve Board’s listing of U.S. Madoff companies. Its website serves up Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities (#3854790) and Bernard Madoff, securities broker/dealer (#2385671). The DTC says the first company is the broker/dealer. Then, what is the second? FED spokesperson David Skidmore said he didn’t know.

He said, “Some entries are for non-bank institutions that are not regulated by one of the banking agencies that participate in the database. Thus, we don’t have further information. So, why are they even in the database? Because in those cases the entries were created because the non-bank entities were participants in a syndicated loan with a regulated bank or thrift.”
“So it is possible,” he said, “– we can’t say for sure at this time — that the two Madoff entities are separate entities, and it is possible that they are the same entity.” He explained that two banking agencies might have created duplicate entries with different names.


Meanwhile, Bank Madoff, New York, remains a mystery. The spokesmen for Clearstream and Euroclear said they had not been contacted about the Wikileaks posting by U.S. investigators.
http://thekomisarscoop.com/2009/03/17/th...nk-madoff/
[URL="http://thekomisarscoop.com/?p=699&akst_action=share-this"]
[/URL]

[David Guyatt]

Well, well, well, Juicy Lucy back pounding the Clear$tream story.

The list was posted on the internet by Wikileaks, a website that specializes in making secret documents public.

I wonder who it was that leaked the info to Wikileaks. Langley anyone?

[Magda Hassan]

Thought that might get your attention David:captain:

[Jan Klimkowski]

"Deliberately blind" = Eyes Wide Open

HSBC was 'deliberately blind' to Bernie Madoff fraud, alleges $9bn lawsuit

Bernard Madoff trustee is suing British banking group HSBC for allegedly ignoring warnings about fraudulent investment scheme

Dominic Rushe in New York guardian.co.uk, Monday 6 December 2010 17.56 GMT

The British banking group HSBC was "wilfully and deliberately blind" to Bernard Madoff's multibillion-pound fraud, according to a law suit filed late yesterday.

Irving Picard, the trustee charged with recovering billions for the victims of Madoff's Ponzi scheme, has sued HSBC and others for $9bn (£6bn) in New York, accusing the bank of ignoring warnings from accountants KPMG that Madoff's phenomenal investment record was too good to be true.

"Had HSBC and [its executives] reacted appropriately to such warnings and other obvious badges of fraud outlined in the complaint, the Madoff Ponzi scheme would have collapsed years, billions of dollars, and countless victims sooner," Picard said in a statement. "The defendants were wilfully and deliberately blind to the fraud, even after learning about numerous red flags surrounding Madoff."

The suit alleges HSBC was instrumental in "engineering a labyrinth" of international sources of funding for the fraudster. "At the core of this architecture was a remarkably small group of individuals and the bank on which they all relied to help project an air of credibility: HSBC," said Oren Warshavsky, a partner at Baker Hostetler, the court-appointed lawyers for Picard.

The bank has so far declined to comment but is expected to contest the claim vigorously.

Madoff was enabled in his multibillion-dollar scam by an international network of "feeder funds" based in Europe, the Caribbean and Central America, which brought in new investors. The suit also names the heads of some of those funds including Sonja Kohn, once known as "Austria's woman on Wall Street", who was one of Madoff's biggest sources of international clients and reportedly introduced Russian oligarchs to the fraudster.

All of the defendants "possessed a strong financial incentive to participate in, perpetuate and stay silent about Madoff's fraudulent scheme", said David Sheehan, a partner at Baker Hostetler. The complaint alleges that the defendants directed more than $8.9bn into Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities (BLMIS). The defendants also earned "hundreds of millions of dollars" backing financial instruments the suit alleges were "designed to substantially assist Madoff by pumping money into BLMIS and prolonging the Ponzi scheme".

The HSBC suit is just the latest from Picard, who last week filed a $6.4bn suit against JP Morgan and in November sued the Swiss bank UBS for $2bn. Both banks are similarly accused of aiding Madoff in his scam. Picard has until this Saturday to file claims for recovery, two years from the initial bankruptcy filing. Picard has so far recovered $1.5bn.

John Coffee, a professor at Columbia Law School, said these latest suits would be hard fought. "I don't expect anyone to settle quietly while there is so much interest in the case and settling would entail an admission of wrongdoing," he said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/...ff-lawsuit

[Jan Klimkowski]

JP Morgan too:

JPMorgan Sued for $6.4 Billion Over Madoff Fraud by Liquidating Trustee

The trustee liquidating Bernard Madoff’s former investment firm sued JPMorgan Chase & Co. for $6.4 billion over claims the bank aided and abetted the imprisoned con man’s fraud.

Irving H. Picard, the lawyer appointed as trustee by a New York bankruptcy court, said in a statement that he sued JPMorgan yesterday seeking $1 billion in fees and $5.4 billion in damages.

“JPMorgan was willfully blind to the fraud, even after learning about numerous red flags surrounding Madoff,” David J. Sheehan, counsel to Picard, said in the statement. “JPMC was at the very center of that fraud, and thoroughly complicit in it.”

Any money recovered from JPMorgan will be returned to Madoff’s victims on a pro rata basis, said Picard, who has so far recovered about $1.5 billion for Madoff creditors.

Picard’s complaint “blatantly distorts both the facts and the law in an attempt to grab headlines,” JPMorgan, the second- biggest U.S. bank, said yesterday in a statement. “JPMorgan did not know about or in any way assist in the fraud orchestrated by Bernard Madoff.”

JPMorgan, based in New York, said it has assisted Picard in his investigation of Madoff’s firm and called his claims “irresponsible and over-reaching.”

‘XYZ Corp.’

Picard filed a separate complaint yesterday seeking $3.14 million from an unidentified company. The complaint, against “XYZ Corp.,” was filed under seal in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. The docket entry for the lawsuit listed the demand as “$3135671000,” or $3.14 billion. In an e-mail today, Picard provided the amount of the demand and said that the court record was being corrected.

The lawsuit against JPMorgan, which Picard called Madoff’s “primary banker,” was filed under seal in the same court, according to the trustee’s statement.

JPMorgan “has designated virtually all of their information as confidential,” Picard said. “We intend to move to have the complaint made public as soon as possible.”

The suit is the second-biggest filed by Picard in the Madoff bankruptcy, after a $7.2 billion claim he filed against investor Jeffry Picower in May 2009. Picower died in October 2009.

$15.5 Billion

In addition to the Picower suit, Picard filed at least 18 other court claims seeking the return of $15.5 billion paid to Madoff friends and family, feeder funds, favored investors and others.

On Nov. 23, Picard sued UBS AG for at least $2 billion, claiming the Swiss wealth-management firm also helped Madoff in his fraud. UBS said it bears no responsibility for Madoff’s crimes. Three days later, Picard sued 40 people who were former Madoff employees or are relatives of Madoff or his wife, Ruth Madoff.

Over the past week, Picard has sued hundreds of so-called “net winners,” investors who withdrew more from their Madoff accounts than they invested. Picard, supported by a ruling in the case from U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Burton Lifland, claims such fictitious profits must be returned to the bankruptcy estate and paid out to all of Madoff’s victims with valid claims. Yesterday, he sued entities of Paris-based BNP Paribas to recover the $160 million they allegedly got from Madoff’s fraud.

Picard is suing for the return of fictitious profits earned in the last six years.

Dec. 11 Deadline

Today, Picard filed a complaint for $182.4 million against Trotanoy Investment Co., a fund managed by Access International Advisors Ltd. and entities of Hyposwiss Private Bank Geneve SA. The fund’s managers ignored warnings that the Madoff investments were fraudulent, according to the complaint.

Picard faces a Dec. 11 deadline for filing suits to recover false profits.

Madoff, 72, is serving a 150-year sentence in a North Carolina federal prison after admitting he directed the biggest Ponzi scheme in history. Madoff was arrested and his firm, New York-based Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, forced into bankruptcy when news of the fraud became public in December 2008.

At the time of his arrest, Madoff’s account statements reflected 4,900 accounts with $65 billion in nonexistent balances. Investors lost about $20 billion in principal.

The case is Picard v. JPMorgan Chase & Co., 10-ap-4932, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

To contact the reporters on this story: Bob Van Voris in New York at rvanvoris@bloomberg.net; Edvard Pettersson in Los Angeles at epettersson@bloomberg.net.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-02...ustee.html

[Peter Lemkin]

Just when it seemed to be over...it just starts to get interesting!

[Ed Jewett]

Madoff Trustee Launches $19.6 Billion Lawsuit

December 11th, 2010 Via: CBS News:
As Saturday’s deadline looms to file claims in the recovery of assets from Bernard Madoff’s massive fraud, the trustee seeking money for the swindler’s victims has sued an Austrian banker, claiming she masterminded a 23-year conspiracy that facilitated Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and funneled billions of dollars into her “deliberately Byzantine” network of European banks.
The trustee, Irving Picard, is seeking $19.6 billion in damages from Sonja Kohn, whom his lawsuit names as the “mastermind” of Medici Enterprise.
The New York Times reports that the 157-page complaint filed today in Federal Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan is the first by Picard to invoke the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
Picard describes a European “labyrinth” of banks, hedge funds, asset management firms, shell companies and offshore trusts, which absorbed billions of dollars from Madoff.
“Sham entities” established and controlled by Kohn, in New York and Europe, “had or have no legitimate business purpose and existed or exist only to receive stolen Customer Property from Madoff,” the complaint states.
The complaint also says Kohn received tens of millions of dollars in “kickbacks” and referral fees from Madoff, and that about half of the funds Picard is suing to recover — $9.1 billion out of $19.6 billion — is directly linked to Kohn and her family members.