Posted on 03/10/2010 9:26:34 AM PST by Liz
The Securities Investor Protection Corp web site has an apparent imposter, i-sipc.com soliciting Madoff victims. A Nigerian scam sought to steal their personal info claiming they had $1.3 million in Madoff money stashed in Malaysia. Burned investors were urged to mail in their "most recent brokerage account statement." The shady group claimed to be based in Geneva, with ties to the UN and IMF but a search of the domain name showed Victor Oladipo, Nigeria, created the site last August.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
That would be backhoe.
Maybe Lowbridge?
Afraid it wasn't me... lowbridge? Was that you?
Ahhhhh! Thanks!
That's RIGHT!
Many of Bernie's buddies walked away with a nice chunk of change.
However, they'llstay free as a bird. The SEC won't do a thing for two reasons.
(1) Believe it or not but I personally know a very, VERY, rich person (borderline Billionaire). And what Dubya and his SEC did to him was borderline illegal. This man was 'Nifonged'.
Many of Bernie's buddies walked away with a nice chunk of change.
The numbers of non-profits and foundations attached to Bernie is very fishy. These groups could collect donations then "invest" it w/ Bernie (after taking a cut). Bernie would then transfer the tax-free monies offshore.
Court appointed trustee Irving Picard, looking into Madoff's assets, unearthed a labyrinth of interrelated international funds, institutions and entities of almost unparalleled complexity and breadth...... and assets and businesses in 11 places overseas.
You have to take into consideration that Madoff was running several simultaneous scams-----(1) a Ponzi fraud; (2) laundering tax-free money, (3) IRS fraud facilitation; (4) a protection racket (shielding certain investors from scrutiny); (5) Dem campaign fraud.
The tax-exempt dimension to Madoff's fraud is very fishy. Madoff was connected to numerous so-called tax-exempt " charities, and family foundations." The Picower Foundation, The Chais Family Foundation, Robert I. Lappin Charitable Foundation, Steven Spielberg's tax-exempt Wunderkind Foundation, tax-exempt Yeshiva University, the Kehilath Jeshurun synagogue, the Maimonides, Ramaz and SAR day schools---and more---all “invested” with Madoff.
The IRS has asserted that tax-exempt "foundations and charities" are the locus classicus for tax evasion and IRS fraud. The landscape is littered with these "foundations and charities." Brooklyn, NY residents registered some 800 tax-exempts in Lakewood-----a small flea-bitten central New Jersey town.
Hadassah is one “charity” that should undergo scrutiny---Hadassah withdrew MORE money from Madoff than it originally put in------it "says" it funds health care initiatives, Zionist education and the Hadassah Medical Organization in Jerusalem. Hadassah now says it plans to finish construction of a new medical tower in Jerusalem and that it has added 8,000 new members in recent months (man, that was one great outreach (/snic). The American Jewish Congress "says" it lost $21 million in the fraud.
" This is racism---pure and simple. I am totally
innocent. As a compassionate and tolerant Democrat,
I was just helping out a distinguished foreign dignitary
when I put $95 000 in my freezer."
I got an email from Nigerian Gen Kachinga Cheatchusuckah who had a problem."
" Now, as soon as Gen Cheatchusuckah transfers Idi Amin's
secret Ugandan gold reserves from a Swiss bank vault to a
refrigerated truck I leased............."
The court appointed trustee looking into Madoff's assets unearthed a labyrinth of interrelated international funds, institutions and entities of almost unparalleled complexity and breadth...... and assets and businesses in 11 places overseas.
Exactly. And he amassed such huge sums because people relied on him being a crook and were safe in the knowledge that "watchers" at FINRA and SEC were there to make sure he could continue to do it with impunity, for as long as the "right people" were the beneficiaries of his schemes and largesse. Many of these "watchers" not only were not punished, but got promoted.
Whistleblower: Pursuit of Madoff Was a 'Death Sentence' (Markopolos) - CNBC, 2010 March 01, by Mary Thompson
In his new book "No One Would Listen", Markopolos writes of how he and a group of colleagues spent years gathering information about Madoff and sending it to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Initially they hoped it would level the playing field by eliminating a successful rival they believed was engaged in fraud, later it became a mission to bring down a man they believed posed a risk to the entire financial system. For Markopolos, a former hedge fund manager and forensic accountant, trying to bring down a man he considered one of the most powerful on Wall Street was one fraught with risks, for his career and family. In an extended interview Markopolos speaks about his book, his investigation, his frustration with the regulators and how he feared for his own life. Living Under a "Death Sentence" Markopolos said he was living under a "death sentence" for ten years. Believing Madoff's client list included drug cartels and organized crime, Markopolos went to extremes to protect himself and his family, even going so far as to devise a plan to kill Madoff. Markopolos, and his former colleague Frank Casey — who helped Markopolos in his pursuit to bring Madoff to the attention of regulators — discusses what it was like to live under that "death sentence." Frustration with SEC For nine years, Markopolos tried repeatedly to bring Madoff's expanding Ponzi scheme to the SEC's attention. Markopolos said he grew increasingly frustrated, angry at the SEC, eventually losing faith in the agency. He talks about the day he found out Madoff turned himself in, and how his relief that Madoff was behind bars quickly turned to fear the SEC would try to come after him. Convincing the SEC Markopolos spent nine years of his life trying to convince the SEC of something he figured out in a matter of minutes - that Madoff was a fraud. ..... For almost ten years Harry Markopolos tried, and failed, to alert regulators and investors of Bernie Madoff's $65 billion dollar Ponzi scheme.
Link to Exclusive Audio Excerpts from ‘No One Would Listen’
Court Blocks Separate Claims Against UBS on Madoff - CNBC / Reuters, 2010 March 04
The court rejected the demands of an initial small group of nvestors in the LuxAlpha fund who wanted to file individual claims against the bank, rather than having to go through the fund's liquidators. Lawyers said the fact that claims will go through the liquidators should be less damaging to UBS because investors could miss out on full compensation and the public relations fall-out would be limited to a single case for each fund. The verdict could have direct implications for many pending cases against UBS, which acted as a custodian for, but did not run, the LuxAlpha and LuxInvest funds. Together they lost about $1.7 billion to Madoff. It could also involve HSBC's Luxembourg arm HSSL, whose Herald fund lost nearly $1 billion to Madoff. Franc Greff, who represents clients in four of the 10 cases being reviewed, said he would appeal against the decision. ..... Investors who lost money to U.S. swindler Bernard Madoff through a fund set up by UBS cannot seek compensation directly from the Swiss bank, a Luxembourg court ruled on Thursday.
When it comes to scams, plenty of those Nigerians in our own governments, and on much larger scale.
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December 31, 2004
Spitzer Looking Into World Jewish Congress
By STEPHANIE STROM, NY TIMES
In odd series of money transfers ordered by the leader of the World Jewish Congress, the tiny nonprofit that has wrested billions in Holocaust restitution from banks, companies and governments in Europe, has provoked an informal inquiry by Attorney General Eliot Spitzer of New York, people contacted by Mr. Spitzer's office said.
Officials from Mr. Spitzer's office have been contacting organization insiders and others in the United States and abroad, and the World Jewish Congress appears to be working to head off a full-blown investigation. Toward that end, Stephen E. Herbits, who has been hired by Edgar Bronfman Sr., the World Jewish Congress' chief patron, to overhaul governance and financial management, has traveled to Israel and Europe courting support for plans for better internal oversight of the organization.
The WJC has formidable legal representation in the form of Robert Abrams, a former New York attorney general, and The Jewish Week reported yesterday that Mr. Herbits had been negotiating with Isi Leibler, the organization's senior vice president and most vigorous internal critic.
Mr. Leibler, who declined to comment, has demanded an independent audit of the World Jewish Congress and extensive reforms in governance and financial management. Among the actions he has questioned are the transfers by the group's leader, Rabbi Israel Singer, which totaled $1.2 million.
In a telephone interview, Mr. Herbits declined to say whether he had met with Mr. Leibler in Israel, but said the overhaul he was hired to produce was going forward. Several changes, like the creation of a finance committee and a nominating committee, will be presented for approval by the organization's general assembly at a meeting in Brussels on Jan. 10 and 11.
"You can't turn around an organization overnight, but I would say well over 70 to 80 percent of the changes have been initiated," Mr. Herbits said. He said that Mr. Spitzer's office had not contacted him but that he would fully cooperate. "I'm more than happy to give them anything and everything they may want to see," he said.
Mr. Spitzer's office declined to comment, citing its practice of refusing to confirm or deny investigations. Those who have been questioned by staff members from its charity bureau, which oversees charitable affairs in the state, said they had been told that articles in Jewish news outlets and in The New York Times about the money transfers had provoked the office's interest.
From October 2002 to February 2003, Mr. Singer, the Orthodox rabbi who has led the World Jewish Congress since 1985 and is a close friend and mentor of Mr. Bronfman, ordered the transfer of a total of $1.2 million from the congress's New York account to a numbered account at a UBS branch in Geneva.
He quickly transferred the money to an account in London controlled by Zvi Barak, an Israeli lawyer, after the new manager of the congress's Geneva office alerted him that the longtime accountant in that office had been paying himself roughly $1,900 a month more than his approved salary.
The people in the Geneva office have said they did not know of the account and learned of it a few months later, when the manager, Maya Ben-Haim Rosen, received a bank statement showing that a UBS account she was unaware of had been overdrawn by $40 when Mr. Singer transferred the money to Mr. Barak.
The WJC says that the money was transferred to Switzerland with the intention of creating an employee pension plan and that it was put into a dormant account to avoid giving discretion over so much money to Ms. Ben-Haim Rosen, a new employee. The group says the money never left its control, and its auditor, Loeb & Troper, concurs, even though congress officials had to call Mr. Barak while he was on a cruise to get him to send the money back to New York, Mr. Leibler has said.
Alfred Donath, president of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities, which has demanded an audit of the Geneva office's accounts, said he was contacted by a representative of Mr. Spitzer's office last week. "She asked me about the letter we wrote, and I told her about it," Mr. Donath said. "It wasn't a long conversation."
Jeremy Lack, a lawyer who serves as spokesman for his father, Daniel Lack, the lawyer for the congress's Geneva office for three decades, said he knew Mr. Spitzer's office was making inquiries, but he would not confirm that his father was contacted. Daniel Lack raised concerns about the money transfers in a letter to Mr. Herbits.
SOURCE http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/31/national/31charity.html?ex=1262235600&en=d633c060a983f1e3&ei=5089&partner=rssyahoo
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