Article: Banned Hedge Fund Manager Steven Cohen Is Back – And Investors Are Wary

Article - Media, Publications

Banned Hedge Fund Manager Steven Cohen Is Back – And Investors Are Wary

Ari Feldman, 26 December 2017

Steven Cohen may soon be able to manager other people’s money once again — but potential investors are wary, the New York Times reported. Cohen, a billionaire who for years ran S.A.C. Capital, nearly had had his career destroyed after a government investigation into insider trading at his firm.

Cohen was banned for two years from running a hedge fund after an investor at his firm used illegal trading methods. S.A.C. Capital also paid $1.6 billion in fines and penalties after pleading guilty to securities exchange fraud. Continue reading “Article: Banned Hedge Fund Manager Steven Cohen Is Back – And Investors Are Wary”

Article: Thanks to Marc Cohodes, We’re Back to the Bad Old Days at Overstock.com

Article - Media, Publications

Thanks to Marc Cohodes, We’re Back to the Bad Old Days at Overstock.com

White Collar Fraud, 20 December 2017

Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne is good at many things, but not running a public company. The company has cooked the books for years at a time, and as explored by money manager Dave Kranzler in this Seeking Alpha blog, Overstock is a “dumpster fire waiting to happen,” a cash-burning vehicle run by a hype-happy chief executive and floating on a cloud of hot air.
Continue reading “Article: Thanks to Marc Cohodes, We’re Back to the Bad Old Days at Overstock.com”

Article: Russian and British national guilty of elaborate $1 million fraud following private prosecution

Article - Media, Publications

Russian and British national guilty of elaborate $1 million fraud following private prosecution

Edmonds, Marshall, McMahon, 13 December 2017

On the 13th December 2017, Andrey Kulich was unanimously convicted in a private prosecution for his involvement in a $1 million conspiracy to defraud Argyn Khassenov, following a four-week trial at Birmingham Crown Court.

Andrey Kulich, a Russian and British national, of Newham Bridge, Worcestershire, was sentenced to a total of 5 years imprisonment and confiscation proceedings will follow.

Commenting on the case, Tamlyn Edmonds, Partner at Edmonds Marshall McMahon who was instructed by the victim of the fraud, Argyn Khassenov, said: Continue reading “Article: Russian and British national guilty of elaborate $1 million fraud following private prosecution”

Article: Hernando de Soto and Patrick Byrne Unite to Challenge Global Poverty & Inequality

Article - Media, Publications

Hernando de Soto and Patrick Byrne Unite to Challenge Global Poverty & Inequality

GLOBE NEWSWIRE, 13 December 2017

World-renowned economist Hernando de Soto and blockchain technology leader Patrick Byrne (founder Overstock.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:OSTK) and blockchain subsidiary Medici Ventures) have formed a joint venture to develop a global property registry system to surface the property rights of billions of people in the developing world. The new company – De Soto, Inc. – brings together de Soto’s decades worth of reforms (especially regarding property rights) at the Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD) and Medici Ventures’ blockchain expertise to build solutions to empower individuals through recognized property ownership.

De Soto, Inc. is developing a blockchain-based system using mobile applications and social media integration that will bring to light the thousands of “disconnected ledgers” (i.e., informal ownership records) that exist at local levels in communities around the world. In doing so, it will create a global repository on which ownership and transfer can be based. The system aims to promote the interests of people who are currently operating extra-legally, as well as multinational corporations who are trying to cooperate with local owners. The company expects to launch its first pilot program in early 2018. Continue reading “Article: Hernando de Soto and Patrick Byrne Unite to Challenge Global Poverty & Inequality”

Article: JP Morgan Chase, Bernie Madoff’s $64.8 Billion Ponzi Scheme and Crime on Wall Street

Article - Media, Publications

JP Morgan Chase, Bernie Madoff’s $64.8 Billion Ponzi Scheme and Crime on Wall Street

Dennis M. Kelleher, 06 December 2017

As the headlines have made clear for years, JP Morgan Chase has a long rap sheet of illegal conduct and, although overlooked, it includes enabling Bernie Madoff’s $64.8 billion Ponzi scheme, the largest in history, which caused net losses of more than $17 billion and untold human wreckage.

Six years ago on December 11, 2008, federal agents arrested Madoff, the ringleader of the Ponzi scheme — as a coda to an age of regulator and prosecutorial incompetence and neglect, Madoff was not caught; he was arrested after turning himself in. This happened in the middle of the largest financial crash since 1929, when the country’s economy was collapsing and when a second Great Depression was a very real possibility. Although not responsible for the crash and collapse, Madoff in handcuffs was in some ways the face of Wall Street greed and criminality.

However, that is a false and misleading picture of crime on Wall Street.

After all, how could this one guy possibly pull off such a crime and at that scale and for so long? He couldn’t have and didn’t. Like most substantial illegal and criminal financial activities, Madoff had a very close relationship with a big Wall Street bank: JP Morgan Chase, the country’s largest bank. Given the focus on the crash and economic calamity in 2008 and JP Morgan Chase’s years-long efforts to prevent any information from being publicly disclosed, JP Morgan’s role in enabling this massive crime wasn’t publicly known for years.

That veil of secrecy ended when a compliant was filed by a court appointed trustee to recover funds for the thousands of injured investors, as summarized in this article: “Trustee: JP Morgan Abetted Madoff.“ In the complaint, the trustees alleged that JP Morgan Chase “was at the very center of the fraud, and thoroughly complicit in it.” JP Morgan Chase, the complaint stated, “turned a blind eye to” Madoff’s fraud.”

Madoff’s decades long fraudulent scheme resulted in the loss of “$64.8 billion in paper wealth and at least $17.5 billion in cash losses.“ The second, third and fourth largest Ponzi scheme losses in history collectively only amounted to 60% of what Madoff stole. While this was happening, JP Morgan made hundreds of millions of dollars from “servicing” Madoff’s accounts and saved itself another $276 million invested with Madoff by remarkably well-timed withdrawals, conveniently just before the scheme was revealed. All of this is documented in the complaint.

Moreover, there is clear information that JP Morgan Chase, including senior officials in compliance and elsewhere, knew about the Ponzi scheme long before Madoff decided to turn himself in. In fact, it appears that JP Morgan Chase “ignored red flags for about 15 years“ that Madoff used JP Morgan Chase accounts to run his fraudulent scheme. Just one egregious example: the complaint quotes (p. 31+) from a June 15, 2007 email from John Hogan, Chief Risk Officer, Investment Bank, JP Morgan Chase to Matt Zames, a senior executive and head of several business lines, stating:

“For whatever its worth, I am sitting at lunch with Matt Zames who just told me that there is a well-known cloud over the head of Madoff and that his returns are speculated to be part of a [P]onzi scheme….”

Read Full Article

Article: Jim Cramer Shorting Stocks, Manipulating Markets, Saying The SEC Doesn’t Understand

Article - Media, Publications

Jim Cramer Shorting Stocks, Manipulating Markets, Saying The SEC Doesn’t Understand

Julie Satow, 06 December 2017

In light of the current economic crisis, and with the hullabaloo ignited recently by Jon Stewart over the accuracy of CNBC’s reporting, we thought it might be useful to revisit this shocking 2006 interview Jim Cramer gave to TheStreet.com’s Aaron Task.
Continue reading “Article: Jim Cramer Shorting Stocks, Manipulating Markets, Saying The SEC Doesn’t Understand”

THE DOLLAR HAS NO INTRINSIC VALUE : DO YOUR ASSETS?