http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110915-704594.html?mod=WSJ_qtnews_wsjcomp

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/BUSINESS/09/15/switzerland.bank.lost/index.html

According to the court document, Hertz and co-conspirators engaged in a bid-rigging conspiracy from at least as early as October 2001 until at least November 2006.   As a part of the bid-rigging conspiracy, Hertz and co-conspirators designated in advance which co-conspirator provider, either his employer or another financial institution, would be the winning bidder for certain investment agreements or other municipal finance contracts.   Hertz and co-conspirators also agreed to submit intentionally losing bids for investment agreements or other municipal finance contracts that were steered to other financial institutions, giving the false appearance that these deals had been bid competitively in accordance with relevant U.S. Treasury regulations, or the requirements of the municipality.

According to the court documents, Hertz also participated in a fraud conspiracy with a broker located in Minnesota from as early as 1998 until at least November 2006.   As part of this conspiracy, the broker gave Hertz information about the prices, price levels or conditions in competitors’ bids, a practice known as a “last look,” which is explicitly prohibited by U.S. Treasury regulations.   On some occasions, the broker signaled Hertz to change his bids to specific numbers so that his employer could make more money.   Hertz and co-conspirators also submitted intentionally losing bids to the broker for certain investment agreements to make it appear that his employer had competed for those agreement or contracts, when in fact, it had not.   As a result of the bid manipulation, Hertz’s employer won investment agreements and other municipal finance contracts at artificially determined price levels, which deprived municipal issuers of money and property.

We have seen quite a lot of bid rigging and price fixing (“gentlemen’s”) agreements in construction and infrastructure projects, cargo shipping and manufacturing.

In the Netherlands, the antitrust authority (NMa) is looking into possible price rigging in the mortgage market. Profit margins on Dutch mortgages are unusually high in Europe, according to a report by the Netherlands Competition Authority (NMa). The mortgage market is in the hands of a few big banks (sounds familiar?). Since July 2009, the interest rate margin, which is the difference between a bank’s borrowing costs and lending rate to consumers, has risen between 30 to 100 basis points, NMa said. “Since mid-2009 the margin in the Netherlands for mortgages with a fixed interest rate period between five to 10 years has been on a high level, both historically as well as compared with Belgium, Germany and France”. The Dutch banking association NVB said it was confident about the outcome of the NMa’s investigation, which will be completed in the spring of next year. NMa invited banks and other parties to react to the findings.

We will bring you updates and new interesting news as it comes along..

http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f264700/264760.htm

http://blogs.forbes.com/billsinger/2010/12/01/hertz-bid-rigging-plea/

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/November/10-at-1366.html

http://www.rnw.nl/africa/bulletin/profits-dutch-mortgages-%E2%80%9Csuspiciously%E2%80%9D-high

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUKLDE6A012620101101

This week the Miami Herald reported that Wachovia is being sued for $68 million by investors in a Ponzi scheme run by Theodule. He banked with Wells Fargo (now part of Wachovia). The lawyer of the victims claims that the bank did not take any precautions when it onboarded the client. The fraudster switched from Wamu to Wachovia. At that time, according to the lawyer, a simple phone call to Wamu would have revealed that the transactions on the account did not make any business sense. In its client due diligence, the bank did not found out that Theodule wasn’t registered as a broker with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and wasn’t licensed in any way at all, said lawyer Perlman, who was appointed by the court to manage Theodule’s companies and try to collect funds to repay victims.

Within a month of Theodule opening several accounts at Wachovia, 36 investment clubs opened accounts at Wachovia, too, Perlman said, injecting some $2.2 million into those accounts. “How much came in just from those investment accounts — that should have set off every bell and whistle,” he said. Transactions between those accounts and Theodule’s should have been another red flag for Wachovia, he said. “The transactions show no investing at all. The money just circulates around,” Perlman said. In addition, Theodule took out large cash withdrawals, spending the money on jewelry and travel, he said. Wachovia even made special arrangements for one of Theodule’s employees to collect bags of cash through a bank drive-through, Perlman said. All together, Theodule withdrew more than $1 million in cash and more than $700,000 for personal expenses, the suit says.

“Why would a bank allow an investment advisor to take it out in cash? Anybody sitting there would instantaneously say `This is suspicious. We need answers. Not only answers, but documentation. This could be money laundering’,” Perlman said. “Whatever it is, it’s not a business that’s consistent with any business I’m familiar with, or the business he purported to be.”

In the Madoff case, victims follow the same route and sued HSBC, UBS, Santander and RBS for billions to recoup their losses. According to their lawyers, HSBC helped funnel more than 8.9 billion US dollars to Madoff through a dozen so-called feeder funds based in Europe, the Caribbean and Central America and ignored warnings from its own accountants that his phenomenal investment record was suspect. In the case of UBS, investors (now?) claim that the name of UBS in the prospectus made them decide to invest with Madoff:

“Without UBS’s serving as promoter, custodian and administrator, “Madoff’s fraud would have been diminished in both scope and duration”

JP Morgan won a similar suit.According to the US District judge:

“While it might have been possible for defendants to determine that Madoff was committing fraud from the ‘red flags’ that plaintiff points out, plaintiff alleges no facts to demonstrate that defendants actually did make such a discovery..”

In their legal battles, victims also zoom in on accountants (PWC Canada) and regulators (SEC). The main question in all these suits is: what can you reasonably expect from accountants, banks and regulators? That question has already been answered by the victims: we want our money back, no matter what and we don’t really care who writes the check. Plenty of business for now..

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/12/30/1993428/bank-accused-of-overlooking-fraud.html

http://www.breakingnews.ie/business/madoff-victims-sue-bank-484511.html

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6d4e8386-ec73-11dd-a534-0000779fd2ac.html#axzz19lXpjkZK

http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2010/11/24/madoff-ubs-lawsuit.html

http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre6ba1ce-us-madoff-abnamro/

http://financialcrimeonline.com/archives/644

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-07-15/jpmorgan-wins-dismissal-of-madoff-victim-s-lawsuit.html

http://www.krone.at/Nachrichten/Banker_zweigte_in_Eisenstadt_mehr_als_8_Millionen_Euro_ab-2_Jahre_unbemerkt-Story-238189

http://kurier.at/nachrichten/burgenland/2059748.php

Puri allegedly invested the money in the stock market. His father has a brokerage firm, Norway Martin, which is mentioned to be part of the fraud scheme; Citibank client’s funds were transferred through the bankaccounts that Puri opened for himself and relatives to Norway Martin, and subsequently invested in stock. The police confirmed that 18 accounts were seized, carrying 3.85 crore; only a small drop in the bucket. Puri is rumored to have been investing in real estate in India as well.

So  now we have an understanding of what happened, and we can answer ‘ so what?’ , the next question is ‘now what?’ .

Obviously Citibank needs to satisfy all stakeholders that is in full control of its business in India and that funds are safe. Bankers that divert money from clients to their own accounts or convince clients to invest in shady funds appear in the news every now and then. This appears to be one of the largest incidents in a while.

Sources claim that Citibank heard about the irregularities when clients told senior management of the bank about the ‘high yield’ investment scheme. When such a scheme did not ring any bells with the Citibank managers, a subsequent inquiry revealed the suspicious transactions. Citibank notified the authorities and is fully cooperating to get to the bottom of the issue.

http://news.oneindia.in/2010/12/29/citibank-gurgaon-branch-fraud-shiv-raj-puri.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/8232531/Citibank-India-employee-arrested-for-alleged-57m-fraud.html

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/100900/Indian_call_center_workers_charged_with_Citibank_fraud

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/96175/20101230/citibank-relationship-manager-puri-arrested-gurgoan-police-arrest-bank-fraud-case.htm

http://financialcrimeonline.com/archives/387

BadB is charged with helping to create and use illicit on-line forums to make fast and easy transactions to sell stolen credit card information to those seeking the information to finance fraudulent transactions.  According to the indictment, he used the online name “BadB” to advertise and sell stolen credit care information via such online forums.  Under the scheme, potential purchasers would create accounts on a website run by BadB. The site was designed to facilitate the exchange of money for stolen credit card information. Secret Service agents infiltrated the network by posing as buyers and purchasing the stolen credit card information.   “The network created by the founders of CarderPlanet, including Vladislav Horohorin, remains one of the most sophisticated organizations of online financial criminals in the world,” said US Secret Service Assistant Director for Investigations Michael Merritt.

Wired posted one of BadB’s cartoons that outlines his services; check it out. Guess who’s smiling now?

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/08/badb/

http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/356695/russian_charged_selling_credit_card_numbers_online/

http://financialcrimeonline.com/archives/692

http://financialcrimeonline.com/archives/902

In this data theft scenario, the IT support guy is like the butler in a classic murder novel; he did it. Adeniyi Adeyemi was an IT tech at Bank of New York Mellon. He confessed that he stole sensitive information belonging to 2,000 bank employees and that he used that data to steal more than US$1 million from charities. Technically: grand larceny, identity theft, money laundering, scheme to defraud, computer tampering and unlawful possession of personal identification information.

Adeniyi worked as a contract computer technician at the Bank’s Manhattan headquarters, and the data he allegedly stole belonged primarily to co-workers in the bank’s IT department. The police executed a search warrant at Mr. Adeyemi’s apartment on April 30, 2009. There, “investigators found dozens of Bank of New York employees’ credit reports on his computer, along with many other documents containing personal identifying information of more than 150 Bank of New York employees. In a storage locker Mr. Adeyemi rented, the investigative team found notebooks containing hundreds of names, social security numbers, account numbers, and other personal data, along with numerous credit cards in Bank of New York employees’ names. Investigators also recovered $30,000 in cash from Mr. Adeyemi’s apartment. Mr. Adeyemi was arrested in the course of the search warrant execution, and remained in custody ever since.

Adeyemi confessed to have stolen more than $1.1 million over an eight-year period from charities by transferring funds from the charities’ bank accounts into bogus accounts he’d set up using the personal information of his former co-workers, prosecutors say. He “input the charities’ banking details, including account and routing numbers, to set up wire transfers on the E*Trade and Fidelity sites from the charities’ account to his dummy accounts, and withdrew the stolen funds or transferred them to a second layer of dummy accounts,” the district attorney’s office said in its press release.

More than a dozen charities were victimized, including Goodwill Industries of Greater New York, the Jacksonville Humane Society and the International Association of Women Judges, all of which had publicized their bank account details in order to receive donations.

Adeyemi also admitted to stealing money from his former colleagues, taking control of their online bank accounts and then wiring money to his dummy accounts, the district attorney said. Wiring just under $10,000 at a time to avoid hitting the threshold at which all financial institutions must report transactions to the US Treasury, he is accused of stealing more than $128,000 from staff.

He spent the proceeds on U.S. Postal Service money orders, to pay his rent and credit cards, and to purchase goods that were then shipped to Nigeria, prosecutors said.

Interestingly, the fraud is reported to have been detected not by the bank or victims, but by the New York/New Jersey Electronic Crimes Task Force of the United States Secret Service, which began surveillance on Adeyemi after tracing suspicious Internet activity at his apartment. This investigation resulted in the search of his apartment and his arrest. This is probably just half of the story, but how the case exactly came to light is an interesting point.

How about contemporary standards for IT security in banks? Do IT staff really need access to client data at all? How about monitoring what IT staff (and bank staff for that matter) are accessing? Any red flags that should have been raised during his eight year rampage? Not only banks seems to be struggling to keep client data safe. If you look at the ‘ fraud triangle’, ‘opportunity knocked’  in this case.

http://www.businessweek.com/idg/2010-07-02/ny-bank-it-tech-pleads-guilty-to-data-theft-fraud.html

http://www.newyorkcriminallawyerblog.com/2009/10/bank_of_new_york_melon_compute_1.html

http://bit.ly/9dmraH

http://financialcrimeonline.com/archives/802

http://www.finextra.com/news/fullstory.aspx?newsitemid=20672

“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 as builders and plumbers and, ultimately, a large number of families. However, as the objective of anti-cartel enforcement is not to precipitate the fall of companies in financial difficulties, the Commission reduced the fines on five companies to a level they could afford. Companies should be in no doubt that the Commission will continue its fight on cartels and the level of fines will continue to be such that it should dissuade them from engaging in illegal behaviour in the first place,” said Joaquín Almunia, Commission Vice President and Competition Commissioner.

Ideal Standard, owned by U.S. private equity company Bain Capital LLC, received the single biggest fine of 326 million euros. Villeroy & Boch was fined 71 million euros.

Back in 2004, the EU raided the offices of Grohe, American Standard and other bathroom-products makers in five European countries and in March 2007 sent official objections to a number of the companies, including Grohe and American Standard.

According to the EU, the coordination took place during meetings of national trade associations in Germany (over 100 meetings), Austria (over 80), Italy (65), and also Belgium, France and The Netherlands, and in bilateral contacts. It consisted of fixing price increases, minimum prices, and rebates, and exchanging sensitive business information.

How did all of this came to light? US firm Masco, whose main subsidiaries are Hansgrohe and Hüppe, got full immunity under the Leniency Program as it was the first to provide information about the cartel to the European Commission.

Financial problems of related companies made the EU decide to lower the fines for these specific companies. The size of the fines “shouldn’t push the companies off the cliff,” Almunia said. “We wouldn’t want a company to go bankrupt because of a fine.”

The fine against Villeroy & Boch is “not justified” according to the company and it announced it will take legal measures to respond. Ideal Standard’s fine was cut by 30 percent reduction because it cooperated with the investigation. Still the penalty is claimed to be “ excessive” and the company sees “strong grounds to appeal.”

Villeroy & Boch shares Villeroy & Boch fell 1.24 euros, or 24 percent, to 3.883 euros in Frankfurt trading, the biggest drop since October 1998. Would this be the time to finally do some home improvement? Will we actually see a drop in bathroom furniture prices now the price rigging is behind us?

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/10/790&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-23/ideal-standard-villeroy-fined-on-eu-bathroom-cartel.html

“The staggering totals from this sweep highlight the mortgage fraud trends we are seeing around the country,” Attorney General Holder said. “We have seen mortgage fraud take on all shapes and sizes—from schemes that ensnared the elderly to fraudsters who targeted immigrant communities.” The FBI announced that 23 mortgage fraud task forces are set up in “hot spots” around the country, from California and Texas to Florida and New York. FBI investigators and analysts participate in 67 working groups nationwide that share intelligence and industry data to identify emerging threats. “FBI agents and analysts are using intelligence, enhanced surveillance, and undercover operations to identify emerging trends and to find the key players behind large-scale fraud,” FBI director Mueller said.

On its website, the FBI provided some mixed examples and a cartoon like graph:

* In Miami two people were arrested for targeting the Haitian-American community, claiming they would assist them with immigration and housing issues. Instead, they used victims’ personal information to produce false documents to obtain mortgage loans.

* In California, a prominent home builder used straw buyers to sell his houses at inflated prices. The scheme inflated prices on other homes in the area, creating artificially high comparable sales and affecting the overall new-home market.

* In Detroit FBI agents arrested several individuals in a $130 million scheme orchestrated by the local chapter of a motorcycle gang. The conspirators posed as mortgage brokers, appraisers, real estate agents, and title agents and used straw buyers to obtain around 500 mortgages on only 180 properties.

So this operation is not the round up of one large criminal organization or one big scheme but the combined effort of law enforcement agencies to focus on mortgage fraud. A great way to get the attention -which always helps to improve awareness and deterrence- and to improve cooperation between law enforcement agencies and private parties involved in mortgage fraud.

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/June/10-opa-708.html

http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june10/mortgage_061710.html

http://www.stopfraud.gov/news/news-06172010-02.html

The hubby, a lawyer, was also in the plot. He was sentenced to 48 months for money laundering and receiving stolen goods. The brother was arrested when he tried to re-enter the US coming from Vietnam. The automaker ultimately was able to recoup $265,000 of the $889,000 from the Wells Fargo account.

Do trust your accountant? Double check on  him/her every now and then? Are you sure you only pay “legit” creditors? Better be sure. You would expect a company like KIA to have some controls in place that would have prevented this from happening. But hey, where there is a fraud in corporate environment, the controls were probably there (written down somewhere) but fraud awareness and adherence to standards are usually on the lower side of the scale.

http://bit.ly/bWXT6n

http://bit.ly/9cUYHN