Ponzi – Financial Treason & Crime

FinCEN Files reporting team, 20 September 2020

Britain’s biggest bank moved the money through its US business to HSBC accounts in Hong Kong in 2013 and 2014. Its role in the $80m (£62m) fraud is detailed in a leak of documents – banks’ “suspicious activity reports” – that have been called the FinCEN Files.

HSBC says it has always met its legal duties on reporting such activity. The files show the investment scam started soon after the bank was fined $1.9bn (£1.4bn) in the US over money laundering. It had promised to clamp down on these sorts of practices. Continue reading “Article: FinCEN Files: HSBC moved Ponzi scheme millions despite warning”

04/25/201803/11/2021

Article: Russia’s greatest Ponzi mastermind is dead, but his legacy lives on in the crypto world

Article - Media, Publications

Russia’s greatest Ponzi mastermind is dead, but his legacy lives on in the crypto world

Sara Hess & Eugene Soltes, 25 April 2018

Sergei Mavrodi, creator of one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history, died last month at age 62, potentially leaving millions of “investors” in countries around the world in the lurch. Beginning around the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Moscow-born Mavrodi’s exploits expanded and evolved over the course of nearly 30 years, putting him in the same league as Bernie Madoff, who operated arguably the biggest such fraud ever, and Charles Ponzi himself, the Italian con artist whose name is now synonymous with this type of financial deception. Continue reading “Article: Russia’s greatest Ponzi mastermind is dead, but his legacy lives on in the crypto world”

10/15/201705/13/2021

Article: Marc Cohodes On The EIC Ponzi Scheme

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Marc Cohodes On The EIC Ponzi Scheme

ValueWalk, 15 October 2017

Farmer Marc Cohodes is one of the world’s most feared short sellers. Former General Partner of Rocker Partners/ Copper River from 1985 to 2009, Cohodes has made a name for himself by focusing on the details. He calls out companies where the numbers don’t add up, and he’s usually right. In the financial crisis, he hit the jackpot when he correctly called the demise of Lehman Brothers. After retiring in 2009, Cohodes has since returned to the markets, betting against Canadian mortgage lender Home Capital and Valeant Pharmaceuticals among others.
Continue reading “Article: Marc Cohodes On The EIC Ponzi Scheme”

05/20/201203/13/2021

Article: Heist of the century: Wall Street’s role in the financial crisis

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Heist of the century: Wall Street’s role in the financial crisis

Charles Ferguson, 20 May 2012

Bernard L Madoff ran the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, operating it for 30 years and causing cash losses of $19.5bn. Shortly after the scheme collapsed and Madoff confessed in 2008, evidence began to surface that for years, major banks had suspected he was a fraud. None of them reported their suspicions to the authorities, and several banks decided to make money from him without, of course, risking any of their own funds. Theories about his fraud varied. Some thought he might have access to insider information. But quite a few thought he was running a Ponzi scheme. Goldman Sachs executives paid a visit to Madoff to see if they should recommend him to clients. A partner later recalled: “Madoff refused to let them do any due diligence on the funds and when asked about the firm’s investment strategy they couldn’t understand it. Goldman not only blacklisted Madoff in the asset management division but banned its brokerage from trading with the firm too.” Continue reading “Article: Heist of the century: Wall Street’s role in the financial crisis”