THE STENCH AT GMAC (was $6B TARP sucked into Madoff's vortex of greed?)

NY POST ^ | 1/7/09 | EDITORIAL

[Liz]

Money manager and GMAC chairman Ezra Merkin fed nearly $1.8 billion of his clients' cash into Madoff's Ponzi game - then Washington turned right around and handed him $6B in taxpayer funds to play with at GMAC--the car-finance company...... there's no doubt that Washington shouldn't have handed over $6B TARP without insisting Merkin disappear. Merkin apparently raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in fees from his investors over the years - for doing nothing but shovel money to Madoff. Merkin's got to go. Pronto.

[Liz]

Did $6 Billion TARP get sucked-up into Madoff's vortex of greed? We demand to know why all three car mfg are going down the tubes despite the TARP billions. Where did taxpayers money go?

Neither GMAC, Bernanke or Paulson are talking about how Merkin was allowed to stay atop the privately-held GMAC operation despite his cloudy recent history - which has been marked by several lawsuits charging the 53-year-old investor with fraud.

BACKUP J. Ezra Merkin is GMAC chairman with a money management business as a sideline----a business that fed nearly $1.8 billion into Madoff's Ponzi game. The ever-helpful Bernanke and Paulson handed Merkin $6B in TARP taxpayer funds to play with at GMAC (a car-finance company).

GMAC Chair J. Ezra Merkin, has a shady recent history -marked by several lawsuits charging the 53-year-old investor with fraud. Merkin is president of the Fifth Avenue Synagogue and shoveled $1.8 billion into the Madoff vortex through Merkin‘s Ascot Partners fund. Members of the Fifth Avenue Synagogue, located on the wealthy Upper East Side of Manhattan, are estimated to have invested some $2 billion w/ Madoff.

Merkin is (was) also Chairman of the Yeshiva University Investment Committee, He introduced clients to Madoff and gave him access to prominent Jewish charities and universities.......the entities were all Orthodox religionists. Yeshiva University, an Orthodox stronghold, is a large tax-exempt complex with several campuses, multiple schools, and international offshore connections.

Merkin, who lives in the tony 740 Park Avenue building, told investors in December Ascot Partners LP fund had invested nearly all its assets with Madoff - and had lost it all. Ascot was one of several funds under Gabriel Capital Group, which had a total of $5 billion in assets under management. Investors who had entrusted their money to Merkin - that Merkin then shoveled to Madoff - include New York University, Yeshiva University, New York Law School and Tufts University.

Merkin/Madoff pal, Ira Rennert, Fifth Avenue Synagogue board chair, invested some $200 million w/ Madoff.

Hamptonites complain this astoundingly palatial mega-mansion in the posh Hamptons is actually a tax-exempt "synagogue-residence-yeshiva" for Orthodox Judaism students. The complex---which rivals Versailles and Buckingham Palace----was built by Fifth Avenue Synagogue board chair Ira Rennert.

Is this astoundingly palatial oceanfront Hamptons mega-mansion
a tax-exempt "synagogue-residence-yeshiva" for Orthodox students?

Just as an aside: One way scumbags hide monies from the taxman is donation of property to tax-exempt non-profits---the scam relies on inflating the cost of the land on the books.

[ravingnutter]

This one irked me:

GMAC Continues Sponsorship of Bowl Game Despite $5 Billion Taxpayer Bailout

[silverleaf]

http://news.muckety.com/2008/12/28/madoff-used-social-family-networks-to-rake-in-billions/9031

[Liz]

Many thanks for the link-—excellent resource.

[Leisler]

Basically, people gave Merkin a billion and half, in cash.

And, Merkin says his buddy ‘took’ the money, and it's gone. Sorry.

Oh, by the way, come to my billion dollar palace some time for a cup of coffee.

Right. Sure.

[Liz]

Impossible to believe astute businessman who made fortunes in competitive businesses would allow themselves to be scammed.....unless......these privileged elites were in collusion with Madoff to engage in a massive tax evasion scheme.

Tax evasion would explain why savvy, astute businessmen were giving this crook huge sums ---$100-500 million--- to “invest.” Apparently Madoff kept a cut of the “investment” and wire-transferred the bulk offshore to friendly money laundering havens. The whole scam crashed b/c Madoff probably wanted a bigger cut but the "investors" refused.

If they were stupid enough to give Madoff $100-500 million, that’s too damn bad. I do not believe the so-called "investors" sob stories for a nanosecond. That guy who showed up on Capitol Hill wiping away his tears was putting on a good act to get a bailout.

Investigators should scruitinize these people----looking for their participation in Madoff's fraud. Can Madoff explain why his wife's name appeared on documents linked to transactions under scrutiny?

Madoff ran his scam through a spinoff----separate from his main firm called Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. The much larger main company operated broker-dealer accounts - trading securities for investors - while the spinoff was a hedge fund.

Madoff was single-handedly managing billions of dollars in offices he kept separate from the rest of his firm........The only oversight was conducted in am upstate Rockland County accounting office only slightly larger than a cubicle (the firm's main office was in NYC). Friehling & Horowitz is a three-person accounting operation based in the northern suburbs of New York City. It is run by one partner, David Friehling, who is in his seventies and is understood to live in Florida, and employs an accountant and a secretary. David Friehling is now under investigation.

FEDS DISCOVER YET ANOTHER MADOFF SIDELINE After he was nailed, federal investigators found evidence Madoff ran an unregistered money-management business alongside his firm's brokerage and the investment-advisory subsidiaries. Clients of Madoff's sideline may have included hedge funds.

Madoff's use of numerous non-profit, tax-exempt "foundations and charities" is a huge red flag---the IRS has stated these entities are the locus classicus for tax evasion. N/P to N/P is the biggest fraud modus---writing checks to each other is a much-used money laundering scheme.

[org.whodat]

Did $6 Billion TARP get sucked-up into Madoff's vortex of greed?

Time line, time line!!!

[GOPJ]

And get this: Merkin appears to have raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in fees from those investors over the years - even though he seems to have done nothing but shovel money to Madoff.

Are most of these "financial wizards" really just lazy crooks? What's really going on here?

[Liz]

Are most of these "financial wizards" really just lazy crooks? What's really going on here?

THIS JUST IN The very latest buzz on the street is that Madoff was laundering Russian mob money....billions from drugs, pornography, prostitution, staged accidents, insurance fraud, medicaid fraud, etc, etc, etc.

These boys play rough.......and answers the question why Madoff is still alive and under house arrest (instead of in jail).

The Ruskis want Madoff living a bit longer........until he tells where he hid all their money.

That would make his "investors" acessories after the fact. Madoff helped the Ruskis steal, and his investors wanted in to get a piece of the action......and all of these crooks wanted to evade the taxman.

[Neidermeyer]

Madoff was laundering Russian mob money
***********************************************
That makes sense to me ,,, they certainly needed to launder/stash funds ,, I sold a house in 1997 to a Russian mobster who was in Florida for 2 weeks and bought 20-30 single family homes during that time.

[Liz]

Earlier news stories reported Russian con artists were involved in mortgage scams----Washington Mutual Bank was conned out of $842,500, Countrywide taken for $396,000...plus other banks and mortgage companies.

Russians Zhigun and Lipkin bought condos for $8M and transferred ownership to Zhigun's mother, Galina Zhigun, the Brooklyn-based AGA Capital mortgage brokerage, which employed his wife, Maryann "Marina" Furman as office manager.

Garri Zhigun lost his stockbroker's license in 2002 over fraud allegations. Mother Galina Zhigun, a civil engineer from Russia, pleaded guilty to bank fraud......she got $870,000 in mortgages from Flagstar Bank. Wife Furman pleaded guilty to wire fraud for faxing a phony loan application. She got $750,000 from New Century Mortgage Corp. records show.

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RUSSIAN PREDATORS RIDE US GRAVY TRAIN These predator "immigrants" get on the US gravy train as soon as they get off the boat and learn to say say "gimmee" in English. US taxpayers provides all kinds of federal, state and city handouts and job set-asides (jobs taken from born Americans)......soon as these illegals say the magic words: "political asylum." Pretending to be "victims" is a lucrative con game.

The FBI has fingered the Russian mob in all kinds of frauds---billion-dollar staged auto accidents, billion-dollar Medicare/Aid fraud, billion-dollar insurance and securities fraud, ID theft, sex crimes, child porn......you name it.

Cable-TV's History Channel did an excellent expose of the depravity of Russian organized crime. The expose asserted that before they land here, Russian criminals stop off in Israel to get all the available freebies (some of the Russian rascals pretend to be Jewish to nake Jews look bad, and to fraudulently pocket free Israeli benefits). They come to the US whining about "political asylumm" pleading "religious persecution" and immediately get on the US gravy train, sucking up US tax dollars like it was going out of style. One TV report chronicled the lifestyle of an unemployed 30'ish Russian immigrant---a trained engineer----picking up US welfare checks while his wife was lolling around getting her hair and nails done courtesy of US taxpayers. Russian emigres arriving in the US are treated like royalty, with tax-subsidized government grants, tax-subsidized housing, and job set-asides waiting for them......jobs taken from taxpaying born-Americans.

Russian TV runs a nightly show outlining the US giveaway programs, how to fill out the forms etc, which US offices to apply to, etc. The sense of entitlement is outrageous. Preying off working class Americans is their livelihood.

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Lord Jesus, and all the saints in heaven. Good golly, now that I've outed the scoundrels, they'll have to kill me (sniffle).

Yawn....I'm so scared (snore-zzzzz). No problem, fellow posters, I notified the US DOJ, FBI, the CIA, Interpol, Scotland Yard, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Carbinieri, Mossad and the Mobile Marine Tactical Sharpshooter Unit.

And I named names.

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REFERENCE----EXECUTIVE SUMMARY THE TRI-STATE JOINT SOVIET-EMIGRE ORGANIZED CRIME PROJECT. RUSSIAN-EMIGRE CRIME IN THE TRI-STATE AREA

Gangsters from the former Soviet Union have established a strong and abiding presence in the New York/New Jersey/Pennsylvania region, engaging in a wide array of crimes that range from sophisticated financial frauds to narcotics trafficking to murder.

Evidence also shows that members of disparate Russian-emigre crime groups here have the potential to develop into one of the most formidable organized crime challenges to law enforcement since the advent of La Cosa Nostra.

These are among the key findings of the Tri-State JointSoviet-Emigre Organized Crime Project, a cooperative research andinvestigative effort launched four years ago by four agencies in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania - the New York Organized Crime Task Force, the New York State Commission of Investigation,the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation and the Pennsylvania Crime Commission.

Investigative agents and staff from these agencies conducted the project in conjunction with criminal justice experts from Rutgers University. The Project's report presents the first comprehensive publicassessment of the threat posed to this region by criminal elements emanating from within the former Soviet Union.

The report catalogues the history and growth of Russian-emigre crime networks, from their core base in the Brighton Beachsection of Brooklyn to their current reach well beyond the New York metropolitan area into the counties of central New Jersey and the suburbs of Philadelphia.

One of the most troubling aspects is evidence of links between individuals here and criminal elements in the former Soviet Union, a phenomenon that lends a disturbing and complex international dimension to this emerging domestic law enforcement problem.The range of criminal and illicit activities linked to these groups is impressive.

The Project report details Russian-emigre involvement in a variety of highly sophisticated frauds and confidence schemes, financial crimes, including money laundering, counterfeiting and securities fraud, narcotics trafficking and an assortment of vice crimes.Russian-emigre criminals are no strangers to violence either.

THE NATURE OF RUSSIAN-EMIGRE CRIME

Crimes of Deception

Motor Fuel Tax Fraud

Insurance and Entitlement Fraud

Confidence Schemes

Counterfeiting

Violent Crimes

Homicide/Attempted Homicide

Extortion and Kidnapping

Drug Trafficking

Money Laundering

Vice Crimes (Regpay, a Florida credit card processing company operated by Byelorussians, was nailed for processing online child porn payments; Minx, Belarus, once a constituent republic of the Soviet Union (independent since 1991) is the country of origin of many of these predators now thieving on US soil.

--SNIP--PDF LONG READ http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:Ahm0dOHcKHEJ:www.state.nj.us/sci/pdf/russian.pdf

[Neidermeyer]

In my case it was perfectly on the up and up ,, they made offers to property owners through a couple of real-estate agents that managed those rental properties...

[GOPJ]

THIS JUST IN The very latest buzz on the street is that Madoff was laundering Russian mob money....billions from drugs, pornography, prostitution, staged accidents, insurance fraud, medicaid fraud, etc, etc, etc.

Madoff had a way of finding crooks.

Maybe ALL Madoff's "investors" - even the ones crying "victim" - should also be investigated.

Odd to find that many dumb multimillionaires - were they dodging the tax man too?

Is the IRS interested in getting big money? Go after Madoff's "friends".

[GOPJ]

Gangsters from the former Soviet Union have established a strong and abiding presence in the New York/New Jersey/Pennsylvania region, engaging in a wide array of crimes that range from sophisticated financial frauds to narcotics trafficking to murder.

Maybe we should ask Putin to put the Iron Curtain back up...

[mo]

“Maybe we should ask Putin to put the Iron Curtain back up..”

I’d just settle for re-opening an Ellis Island type immigration gateway..filtering out the crooks the crooks and the terrorists before they hit domestic soil.

[Liz]

Odd to find that many dumb multimillionaires - were they dodging the tax man too? Is the IRS interested in getting big money? Go after Madoff's "friends". ALL Madoff's "investors" - even the ones crying "victim" - should also be investigated.

You got that right.

[GOPJ]

I’d just settle for re-opening an Ellis Island type immigration gateway..filtering out the crooks the crooks and the terrorists before they hit domestic soil.

Works for me...