Peregrine Files For Bankruptcy After $215M Goes Missing, Where Were The Regulators?

PFG Best CEO Attempts Suicide Over "Accounting Irregularities"

Posted on 7/9/2012

There is disturbing news coming out of brokerage firm PFG Best today. CEO Russell R. Wasendorf Sr. has allegedly attempted suicide over potential accounting irregularities at the firm. The NFA has also put PFG Best in liquidation only status, effectively shuttering the firm. PFG Best released the following information to its clients on Monday afternoon:

“Due to a recent emergency involving Russell R. Wasendorf, Sr., a suicide attempt, some accounting irregularities are being investigated regarding company accounts. PFGBEST is wholly owned by Mr. Wasendorf. Therefore, the NFA and other officials have put all funds on hold, and PFGBEST is in liquidation-only status with our clearing FCM. What this means is no customers are able to trade except to liquidate positions. Until further notice, PFGBEST is not authorized to release any funds. We will update you as any new procedures are stipulated and with any further information as it becomes available.”

UPDATE: The National Futures Association reported Monday afternoon that $220M in PFG Best's customer funds are missing.

~ ~ ~ ~

As usual, Ann Barnhardt, who knows her futures stuff well, spares no righteous, well earned venom for these snakes.

The Peasants are Sharpening Their Pitchforks

Posted by Ann Barnhardt - July 11, AD 2012 6:09 PM MST

I just got an email from a retired - I'll not call her elderly - lady who has had $50,000 of her meager retirement savings stolen in the PFG rape. She wants to enjoin a class action suit and go after not just PFG but also the NFA. I'll quote her now, and you can extrapolate her emotional state:

I want roasted ba**s on a plate at this point. Preferably roasted while still on a living person... Without anesthesia.

I wouldn't recommend focusing on castrations. I'd recommend focusing on suing the NFA. The PFG estate is almost certainly dry, and as with MF Global, JP Morgan isn't going to turn loose of anything.

But the NFA? Oh, that's a fat hog just begging to be stuck. Did you know that the NFA charges one cent per side on every futures and options contract traded in the United States? Stop and think about that for a moment. That is a heck of a lot of money. As a purely private organization that basically operates as the gestapo of the CFTC and of the industry cronies who sit on the boards and committees, the NFA is free to make as much money as they please - and they do. They have a massive war chest.

I also would bet that the individual board members, executives and committee members probably have some pretty hefty net worths as well.

Would some attorney please form a class and sue? I have one little old lady who is ready to rumble in the style of the old-school. Let's give these people a focused outlet for their ire.

~~~~~

Lord have mercy. More blood thirsty crooks joining the corruptocrat govt. connivers .. financially raping and pillaging folks at every turn, robbing them blind. Every day, every single day, the integrity of our financial sectors are just being pummeled. Where can it all possibly end?

..Zing!

Bump it..

Is this the same Peregrine?

1995 : () In 1995, for example, $70,000 in contributions to the Democratic National Committee bought Gluckstern a seat at Clinton's right hand during a controversial lunch with big donors at which the president praised them for helping fund an early ad blitz through a "soft-money" loophole. More recently, Gluckstern was Zurich's point man in an attempted rescue of Peregrine Investments Holdings, a controversial Hong Kong investment bank with strong ties to the People's Republic of China. Gluckstern grew up in Amherst, Mass., the son of a psychologist and a physicist. He began his professional career as a teacher. --------January 18, 1998 47 posted on Sunday, August 07, 2005 4:59:19 AM by kcvl

Off the top of my head and in ignorance of their past, doesn’t sound like them. Found this:

~~~~~~~~~~

For SD readers wondering how PFG could go several years with hundreds of millions of dollars missing from segregated client funds and yet regulators never say a word, wonder no more.

PFG’s CEO Russell Wasendorf Sr. is currently sitting on the National Futures Association’s Advisory Committee! Wasendorf is an active member of the committee that is supposedly regulating his firm!!!

You simply can’t make this s*** up!!

Futures Commission Merchant Advisory Committee

David M. Battan
Vice President and General Counsel
Interactive Brokers, LLC
Washington, DC
(term ending February 2015)

Bruce A. Beatus
Assistant General Counsel
Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Chicago, Illinois
(term ending February 2014)

Maria Chiodi
Director and Counsel
Credit Suisse
New York, New York
(term ending February 2014)

Clarence Delbridge, III
Executive Vice President
FC Stone, LLC
Chicago, Illinois
(term ending February 2014)

Robert F. Klein
Managing Director and General Counsel
Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.
New York, New York
(term ending February 2014)

Donald R. Levine
Senior Counsel
Jefferies Bache LLC
New York, New York
(term ending February 2015)

Bonnie Litt
Managing Director and
Associate General Counsel
Goldman Sachs & Co.
New York, New York
(term ending February 2015)

Marc Nagel
Chief Operating Officer
Dorman Trading LLC
Chicago, IL
(term ending February 2014)

Susan M. Schultz
Glenview, Illinois
(term ending February 2014)

Russell R. Wasendorf Sr.
CEO
PFG Best
Chicago, Illinois
(term ending February 2015

http://www.silverdoctors.com/russell-wasendorf-sr-currently-sitting-on-nfa-advisory-board/

~ ~ ~ ~

There is a Chicago connection. Watch the video here for further details .. this guy was an outright liar, and did truly despicable things with other people’s hard earned money, leaving them and his 100+ employees in the lurch. He was cooking the books for a couple of years, the $$ is gone, and the Feds just come now, when it’s too late:

http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2012/07/11/chicago-business-news-711

No, it is not.

This Peregrine is PFG Best, headquartered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. CEO Russell R. Wasendorf Sr. is reputedly a Republican.

Does PFGBest have ties to Illinois Gov’s Corruption Scandal?
December 9, 2008 at 01:52 pm

###

Now that Wall Street and the United States financial system has imploded, and the ties between corrupt financiers, politicians, and the shenanigans of these crooks are well known to all of us, we’re left with many unanswered questions.

Public Corruption in Illinois:

Should Mr. Blagojevich end up in prison, he will join predecessors including the following:

Republican George Ryan, who is currently serving a 6 1/2-year stretch in federal prison for racketeering and fraud. Blagojevich, along with Sen. Richard Durbin, has publicly supported an appeal to the White House for the commutation of Mr. Ryan’s sentence.

Otto Kerner, a Democrat who was convicted in 1973 on 17 counts of bribery, conspiracy, perjury and other charges before being sentenced to three years in the pen. The federal prosecutor in that case, James Thompson, later ascended to the governor’s chair and wound up getting his law firm to defend Ryan for free.

Dan Walker was convicted in 1987 — years after leaving office — of bank fraud. Serving from 1973 to 1977, with a reputation as a reformer, he was the last Democratic governor of the state before Mr. Blagojevich took office in 2003.

Lennington Small, a Republican, served from 1921 to 1929. He was indicted while in office for embezzlement related to actions taken when he was state treasurer. He was later acquitted; several of the jurors in the case ended up with state jobs.

Also, in one infamous case further down the chain, a former speaker of the state’s House of Representatives and secretary of state, Paul Powell, was found after his death in 1970 to have had several million dollars in embezzled cash stashed in shoe boxes.

Mr. Powell, according to a Time magazine article at the time, had his own definition of success, believing that “there’s only one thing worse than a defeated politician, and that’s a broke one.”

Now that trillions of dollars are wiped from people’s 401K’s, pensions, and investments, the question as to who was watching the hen house is garnering more and more attention.

We have the alphabet soup of regulatory agencies that were supposed to be watching us, but who were they watching out for?

Firms like http:///www.http://www.pfgbest.com/ CEO, Russell Wassendorf, Sr.?

His campaign contributions into the Chicago Political machine where many of our major financial firms are located makes one wonder—is the stack of cards located against the investors?

On the other hand the Commodity Futures Trading Commission wants the public to be more informed of fraud and fraudulent claims by unscrupulous foreign exchange and other Commodity Firms:

Commodity Futures Trading Commission Forex Fraud

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has witnessed increasing numbers, and a growing complexity, of financial investment opportunities in recent years, including a sharp rise in foreign currency (forex) trading scams. A federal law enacted in December 2000, called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (CFMA), makes clear that the Commission has the jurisdiction and authority to investigate and take legal action to close down a wide assortment of unregulated firms offering or selling foreign currency futures and options contracts to the general public.

In addition, the CFTC has jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute foreign currency fraud occurring in its registered firms and their affiliates.

How about Peregrine Financial Group’s acquisition of American National Trading aka the “ANTC” Group?

A cursory review of American National would reveal that their main principals and firm was alleged to be in violation by the National Futures Association of:

C.R.2-2(a) - CHEAT,FRAUD DECEIVE CUSTOMERS C.R.2-9(a) - SUPERVISION OF EMPLOYEESC.R.2-29(a)(1) - FRAUDULENT COMM. TO PUBLIC PROHIB

Gee, how inspiring.

But, nonetheless, Peregrine Financial Group, announced that: “PFG and ANTC are joining forces to better serve ANTC’s customers,” said PFG Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Russell R. Wasendorf, Sr. “There are so many synergies, and we believe there will be significant benefits to ANTC customers.

Synergies? Benefits? So Many?

Really.

From a very cursory public regulatory records search—which doesn’t include any civil or criminal complaints—there appears to be over 40 customer complaints with either the National Futures Association and/or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission against Peregrine Financial Group alone.

Not very inspiring of “trust” is it?

The future of our ability to invest with confidence and trust, and to believe what our capital market Financial Firms do, is how they perform, or what they don’t perform.

Based on the recent meltdown in the large New York and Chicago Securities and Financial Firms, that appears to have been replaced with a culture not only of greed, but of our collective ennui.

As to Mr. Wasenforf, Peregrine Financial, and other of his companies, how many times have they not had enough capital to legally operate one must wonder why they’re still in business?

Quite a few actually. Are they using our trust monies to gamble with?

Are there any connections between Wasendorf, Tony Rezko, or the indicted Illinois Governor?

Time will tell.

But for a firm that was allegedly started in a “basement” the fact that Wasendorf’s firm, Peregrine, sues all of his clients that his company loses money on behalf, is surely a clue to be aware of that these guys are no different than many of the others that have lost the public trust.

Which other companies, people, and politicians are next in line to be found liable in this unbelievable Chicago corruption?

http://www.nowpublic.com/tech-biz/does-pfgbest-have-ties-illinois-govs-corruption-scandal#ixzz20OOYPnBZ

Photos = mob ?

Bump it? You bet.

People in government think they are they only smart ones so they constantly grab power to regulate. But then they can’t ever spot anything in advance because they aren’t really very smart at all.

They can’t be sued for negligence due to sovereign immunity while trial lawyers can come up with the dopiest causes of action to wreck private businesses. Government regulatory agencies that shirk their responsibility to oversee private accounts need to be liable for the failures of their work. Their employees need to face at least of the possibility of individual liability in civil court. That might get them to straighten up and fly right ahead of time instead of only going off the deep end and ruining things for everyone else with once it’s too late over reactions.

Sovereign immunity was a relevant theory once upon a time when government did little to nothing in the private economy. Now they want to not only give the dance but pick the music, determine the sizes of the punch glasses and dictate the ladies shoe selection. They need to have to pay the band now, too.

“Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said it was “nothing short of disturbing that high-ranking officials within the SEC were spending more time looking at pornography than taking action to help stave off the events that brought our nation’s economy to the brink of collapse.”

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2010/04/eye_opener_porn_and_federal_wo.html

If its bad enough even the Washington Compost can’t bury it, it’s go to be even uglier than what’s reported.

Just what exactly is it the Feds do any more for these United States?

the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee

Should be called the House Hindsight and Government Expansion Committee.

THANKS FOR THE HEADSUP. As the CIA says---the crooks always leave a paper trail. When they steal they have to stash the money somewhere.

According to the Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigation Division, bank accounts may have aided and abetted govt fraud and other criminal enterprises.

The "Bank Secrecy Act" was passed to protect the public from harm by identifying and detecting criminal enterprises, money laundering, tax evasion or other unlawful activities.

Under the Bank Secrecy Act, banks are required to establish, implement and maintain programs designed to detect and report suspicious activity that might be indicative of fraud, money laundering, embezzlement, and other financial crimes.

MODUS OPERANDI Joint bank accounts might be used to facilitate the transfer funds....may pay for personal and private expenses, credit cards, real estate sunsidies and vehicle purchases.

To cover their tracks, fake invoices might be created to show that money deposited into accounts was being used for legitimate govt purposes. The scheme might be advanced by issuing statements of payments from other sources that actually covered the transfer of funds for their own use.

L/E is directed to get ahold of: (1) copies of checks, (2) wire transfers, (3) account statements, (4) invoices, (5) bills, (6) delivery tickets, (7) correspondence including e-mail, contracts, loan agreements, and, (8) any other books or records.

L/E should also explore (a) monies paid to brokers, sub-brokers, (b) family members, (c) mortgage brokers, (d) financial managers, and, (e) real estate agents, brokers, and developers.

L/E should scrutinize bank accounts for suspicious activites: (A) large deposits, (B) funds transferred from one account into another, (C) request for withdrawals.

Bank records might also show diversions to secret LLC other accounts, to operate personal businesses. Fraud can also be facilitated by withdrawals, gift cards purchases, credit card purchases and intrabank transfers from business accounts into personal accounts.

A huge tipoff is whether bank withdrawals support luxurious lifestyle including payments for real estate, investment and stock holdings, jewelry, luxury vehicles, resort travel and gifts from luxury outlets for wives and mistresses.

This Peregrine is PFG Best, headquartered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Close but, actually, it's Cedar Falls.

CHRONICLED BY "AMERICAN GREED" cable show: There are any number of frauds that make for good belly laughs when you realize how stupid and gullible the rich are.

Fraudster Ken Starr played the part as “financial advisor" to the stars and the socially wealthy – Diane Sawyer, Barbara Walters, Mike Nichols....all the while he was stealing clients blind. Little did his cleints know Starr's third wife made her living energetically gyrating her undressed body against a stainless steel pole----Starr married the pole-dancer and showered her with luxuries.

Diane Passage, pole-dancer, and husband Ken Starr.

The funniest part of the Starr saga was when he tried to get his elite clients to suppoprt his wife's desire to make pole-dancing an Olympic event. ROTFL. Starr is now in jail.

============================================================

Shockingly the US govt brought down one of the biggest frauds to emerge from the nation's housing crisis. The fraud started in 2002 and ended in 2009 with a raid that stemmed from an investigation into Alabama-based Colonial Bank's fraudulent and unsuccessful attempt to obtain more than $550 million from the federal Troubled Asset Relief Program. It led to thousands of employees losing their jobs, and the collapse of Colonial Bank, the sixth-largest bank failure in U.S. history.

THIS COST YOU PLENTY Colonial Bank w/ $26 billion assets base ran into problems after it was revealed that it had bought $1 billion in mortgages from Taylor, Bean & Whitaker a company owned by openly gay Lee Farkas, that were fraudulent---Taylor Bean did not own the mtges and had repackaged the mtges several times in one of the biggest fraud cases in history. CEO Lee Farkas bought TBW for $75,000, to begin his fraudulent schemes....he was put on trial and found guilty of fraud.

On August 14, 2009, Colonial Bank failed and its 346 branches were seized by regulators. $22 billion of the bank's deposits were subsequently sold by the FDIC to BB&T Corp. The bank's failure was the largest bank failure in 2009 and the 6th largest bank ever to fail in the United States, costing the FDIC's Deposit Insurance Fund an estimated $2.8 billion.

FARKAS CREATED A MONSTER Homeowners with Farkas mtges would get foreclosure notices even when they were faithfully paying down debt----then multiple lenders would come after them claiming they owned the mtge.....b/c Farkas fraudulently sold and resold mtges to anyone who would buy them.

“THANKS FOR THE HEADSUP. As the CIA says-—the crooks always leave a paper trail. When they steal they have to stash the money somewhere.”

Sometimes, they spend the money faster than they can schill current and new clients/idiots/. There is often no money to stash or hide, as it was spent faster than it came in.

Recently, we had one of these schillers running a ponzi game in this area and in certain parts of the Midwest.

4 plus years later, various state, federal, private investigators, and current LEOs with conned relatives have not been unable to find any of the millions stashed away.

His formerly multi million $ estate in an exclusive locked gate community, large scale and expensive galas for family members, cruise and elaborate vacations with no expenses, luxury cars, trips to London, Monte Carlo and other expensive places apparently ate up the money minus the few so called dividends given to some clients to keep them quiet and happy.

The only paper trail, this high class crook left were his massive unpaid credit card debts, seconds/thirds and lines of credit on his former multi million dollar estate in a locked community. That paper trail amounted to over 500K.

...and roughly $215 million in client assets can not be tracked.

Bravo Sierra!

From: Bizarre Case of Failed Broker Becomes Even Stranger - CNBC, by Scott Cohn, 2012 July 12

Just days before Peregrine Financial Group collapsed, the firm's president sent an email to employees suggesting the crisis had passed, CNBC has learned.
"It is believed that based on current cost cuts and projections for increases in income in particular from international business ... that PFGBEST will be able to run at break even," wrote President and Chief Operating Officer Russell Wasendorf, Jr., in the July 6 email obtained by CNBC and verified by multiple PFG employees. ..... < snip >
..... PFG filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday, and regulators say some $200 million in customer funds are unaccounted for.
One day earlier, Wasendorf's father, PFG founder and CEO Russell Wasendorf, Sr. - a 40-year futures industry veteran - attempted suicide in his car outside PFG's Cedar Falls, Iowa headquarters.
An apparent suicide note found in the vehicle indicated possible accounting discrepancies at the firm, according to a police report. ..... < snip >
..... On June 5, employees received an invitation to Wasendorf's wedding to his fiancee Nancy Palladino, planned for Aug. 4, according to another email obtained by CNBC.
But public records in Clark County, Nevada show Wasendorf and Palladino were married in Las Vegas three weeks later, on June 30. Three days after the wedding, Wasendorf signed over power-of-attorney to his son, Russell Wasendorf, Jr.

Three days later, on July 6, the younger Wasendorf sent the email to employees saying the firm was now poised to break even. ..... < snip>

To call it "bizarre" sounds appropriate, if not an understatement. Wonder how much more is in those emails.

Apparently, the NFA filed a civil complaint against Peregrine Financial Group in February 2012, specifically for alleged misappropriation of funds from the segregated customers' accounts... so this wasn't really unexpected news.