Financial Crime Online

UBS stock took a 7% hit today after the news was published that a rogue trader had been arrested. A 31 year old London based UBS broker allegedly surprised his employer with a $2 billion loss due to unauthorized trading. Who doubted that banks took risk management extremely serious after the mortgage crisis and Kerviel [...]

The US DOJ reported that former (JP Morgan) vice president James Hertz ´Pleads Guilty for Role in Bid-rigging and Fraud Conspiracies Involving Municipal Bonds´. JP Morgan was was a provider of investment agreements and other municipal finance contracts, such as swaps, to public entities. Public entities typically hire a broker to conduct a competitive bidding [...]

So let’s say you made a mistake and invested your money in a ponzi scheme. By the time you find out about your mistake, the bad guy is probably broke. How to recoup your money. Sue the bank; that is where the money is. Not your money (that went to boats, juwelry, cars, real estate [...]

Another rogue banker…. This banker at the Oberbank in Austria is reported to have embezzled over 8 million euros of client’s funds. Internal controls apparently did not pick up the abnormalities until this month while the fraud started in May 2008. The banker allegedly forged client’s signatures to transfer money to accounts in Hungary to [...]

The police in Gurgaon arrested a Citibank relationship banker, Shivraj Puri, in a multi ($70m) million dollar fraud. Puri allegedly opened over 70 bankaccounts in his name and in the name of relatives with several banks in India. The banker lured high net worth clients of Citibank into a bogus Citibank investment program. He promised [...]

BadB; not a gangsta rapper but allegedly a credit card fraud kingpin. Vladislav Horohorin, 27 years old, has a Ukrainian and Israeli passport and is the main suspect in an US led undercover investigation. BadB has been around (on the internet) for years bragging and boosting about his fraud. He has been offering stolen credit [...]

It is one of a bank’s worst nightmare. And it probably is one of yours. Imagine someone that can access your personal financial data to steal it and abuse it. Banks do (almost?) everything they can to prevent unauthorized access to your data but bank staff themselves obviously need to have access to your data [...]

The European Commission has fined 17 bathroom equipment manufacturers a total of € 622 250 783 for a price fixing cartel covering six EU countries. “These 17 companies fixed prices for baths, sinks, taps and other bathroom fittings for 12 years in six countries covering 240 million people. The cartel will have harmed businesses such [...]

“Operation Stolen Dreams”; 1,215 criminal defendants in mortgage fraud related cases that uncovered more than $2.3 billion in losses.  Additionally, to date the operation has resulted in 191 civil enforcement actions which have resulted in the recovery of more than $147 million. Not a small project. FFETF has been coordinating efforts nationwide to achieve these [...]

An certified public accountant, Mrs. Cecile Nhung Campbell, working at KIA motors was sentenced to 76 months of jail time last Friday after she pleaded guilty federal charges of grand theft, money laundering and filing false tax returns, according to a statement from the Orange County (CA) district attorneys office. Mrs. Nhung Campbell worked for [...]