Financial Crime Online

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 [...]

A former employee of Pamrapo Savings Bank was arrested by IRS agents on June 2 and charged with diverting and embezzling more than $600,000 from the  New Jersey-based bank. According the the details published in the public domain to date, the scheme was quite simple. In a complex banking environment, he asked business partners to [...]

Swiss banks are no longer what they used to be. The ‘secrecy veil’ has been lifted to a large extent. Money launderers found ‘safer’ havens for their dirty money. This week it was announced that a Swiss banker, the former CEO of Tempus PrivatBank, is indicted for corruption and money laundering after a 7 (!) [...]

The Quadrangle Group agreed to pay $ 12 million to settle allegations of paying kickbacks to get business from a NY pension fund. The investment firm will pay $ 7 million to the pension fund and $ 5 million to the SEC. News of the settlement came on the same day that the state comptroller, [...]

The SEC claims that Goldman created and sold to its clients a mortgage unit that was devised to fail ,without telling clients that the set up was for the portfolio to fail. Within half an hour after this announcement, Goldman’s share price dropped 10% (or over $ 10 billion). The SEC alleges that one of [...]

German car producer Daimler and its Russia and China subsidiaries reached an agreement with the US Justice department to settle Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) Charges.  The settlement follows allegations of widespread corruption within the company, or rather a corporate culture that encourages staff to bribe officials to secure contracts. Daimler acknowledged that is conspired [...]

Wells Fargo & Co’s Wachovia Bank agreed to cough up $160 million to end a criminal money laundering probe into the use of its exhange houses in Mexico by drug cartels. The government agreed to defer prosecution on a criminal charge that Wachovia did not set up an effective anti-money laundering program from 2003 to 2008. [...]

How can you use stolen bank data? Or rather: who can use stolen  bank data? Last month a member of staff with HSBC allegedly took client files from his employer and ‘provided’ them to French authorities. The French were keen for the data for tax purposes; amongst HSBC clients in Switzerland there are a lot [...]

In crime reporting the attention is usually drawn to the ‘latest and greatest’. Spectacular stuff. Medicare fraud seems boring; not the place a cop would want to spend his career? Let’s view it from a criminal’s point of view; risk and reward. Medicare fraud nets billions, without the risks of getting shot or ripped. Medicare [...]

There we go: “Drugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis, the United Nations’ drugs and crime tsar, Mr. Costa, has told the Observer.” Leave it to UNODC to help bloggers and the press to come up with interesting headlines. The head of the UN [...]