L/E should rigorously investigate the latino criminal uderworld---corrupt parasites undermining the US political system----proof-positve here that govt documents were falsified to hide the corrupt use of tax dollars. L/E might find the latino underworld doled out tax funds to finance drug habits, sex romps and other outrageous conduct.
"Hispanic Federation honchos"--Roberto Ramirez (left)
and Luis Miranda--look like they have a BIG secret.
The "federation" has ties to latino crime family nonprofits---which are corrupt political machines.
Twi$ted web of political nonprofits in Bronx, NY / By CANDICE M. GIOVE; w/ Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein
EXCLUSIVE The dating life of ex-Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera (ousted from office by voters) has shed light on a web of Latino nonprofits in The Bronx — groups that benefit a close-knit network of political insiders as much as the community.
Rivera installed a boyfriend, Vincent Pinela, as head of the Bronx Council for Economic Development, a taxpayer-funded nonprofit he admits being unqualified to run. He alleges she used the group to fund their dates and her campaign.
But the Bronx economic council is only one nonprofit of many organized under the Hispanic Federation, which has taken in $24 million in taxpayer money since 1998. The federation has ties to almost every Hispanic lawmaker in The Bronx, including Rivera, but primarily benefits two men: political strategist Luis Miranda, who co-founded it and once served as its president, and Roberto Ramirez, a former Bronx Democratic Party boss. The men run a private political consulting firm, the MirRam Group. It’s paid by the Hispanic Federation and is hired by politicians who steer taxpayer money to the nonprofit.
A NY Post investigation has found:
<><><>* The Hispanic Federation paid MirRam and Miranda Towns, a firm registered to Miranda and his wife, $681,644 between 1999 and 2008 for “consulting,” records show.
<><><>* In 2005, the federation paid MirRam $88,000 to survey Latinos on topics including the mayor’s race. At the same time, MirRam was paid $1.37 million by Fernando Ferrer, then a mayoral candidate.
<><><>* Ramirez and Miranda gave political allies jobs at the nonprofit. Ex-Secretary of State Lorraine Cortez Vazquez, who had been Ramirez’s chief of staff, made more than $180,000 a year there.
<><><>* The Hispanic Federation paid MirRam $33,000 this year to lobby the City Council, records show.
<><><>* The group often pays out small amounts, from $400 to $800, to individuals without detailing why on official documents as required by law. A source in the group said these are sometimes payments for favor. "I have to pay a lady who is bringing latino seniors to a political event,” the source said. “They promised to send the lady to the Dominican Republic with her family in exchange for rounding up votes.” An Hispanic Federation spokesman lied---and said the payments were for families of victims of American Airlines Flight 587, which crashed in Queens in 2001, or "other people in need."
Miranda launched the Hispanic Federation in 1990, the year Ramirez won an Assembly seat in Fordham. Ramirez left politics in 2000 and handed the party reins to Assemblyman José Rivera, father of sexpot Naomi, in 2002. Insiders say that if you want influence in The Bronx, you have to deal with the Hispanic Federation and, by extension, MirRam consultants. Nonprofits, for instance, pay the Hispanic Federation to do their bookkeeping.
Rivera's Bronx Economic Development council was charged $12,000 a year for Hispanic Federation services according toher boytoy Pinela. Every year, the federation throws a fund-raising gala packed with politicians---a bash at the Waldorf-Astoria last Apri1 brought out mayoral hopefuls City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Bill Thompson and New York Giant Victor Cruz.
But the blurring of a nonprofit and a consultant group means there’s little or no accountability, said the source inside the Hispanic Federation. “If we were helping the Little League around the corner to get bats or gloves . . . the ends justify the means,” the source said. “But when you are giving extra money to a senior center because they delivered people to a [political] event, it’s a different story.”
A federation spokesman called the allegations “simply untrue,” saying it only provides funds for those in need of disaster relief. As for payments to MirRam, the group noted that Miranda was no longer its president and MirRam is “arguably the top Latino lobbying and strategic consulting firm in our city.”
SOURCE http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bronx/twi_ted_web_in_bx_Fxatn1KxaBpb4reW6SaeqI#ixzz24f02JyRG
MASSIVE MORTGAGE FRAUD ON CAPITOL HILL FACILITATED W/ OUR TAX DOLLARS :
The Congressional Hispanic Institute, Inc, is an entity organized by Cong Joe Baca (D-Cali) in his capacity as head of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
Cong Baca created "HOGAR" (Spanish for home) in 2003 to work with the mortgage industry, F/M, lenders, banks and latino community groups to increase mortgage lending to what savvy observers consider to be unqualified Latinos.
"HOGAR" colluded w/ Cong Baca in what was to become a massive bilking of taxpayers. Cong Baca calculatedly hyped the fact that the national Latino homeownership rate was 47%, compared with 68% for the overall population.
HOGAR was coached to call the figure "alarming," and to say "a concerted effort was required to ensure that by the end of the decade Latinos will share equally in the American Dream of home ownership."
HOGAR and Cong Baca conned the public, failing to note that most of the "dreamers" were illegals, citizens of Third World countries who had violated US borders.
Predictably, HOGAR colluded w/ co-conspirators which included:
(a) shaky mortgage companies that ran into big trouble;
(b) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both now under federal control after billions in taxpayer bailouts;
(c) Countrywide Financial Corp., sold to Bank of America Corp;
(d) Washington Mutual Inc., taken over by the US government and sold to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.; and,
(e) New Century Financial Corp. and Ameriquest Mortgage Corp, both now defunct, killed by defaulted subprime Latino mortgages.
HOGAR's ties to the subprime mortgage industry were substantial. Bribery and self-dealing were rampant:
<><> Companies that donated $150,000 to Cong Baca got the right to have their own research fellow who would conduct fraudulent studies, which were cunningly used by industry lobbyists to pump lending.
<><> Bribery and extortion in the form of $100,000 annual donations to Cong Baca, for which HOGAR provided phony news releases from Cong Baca's Hispanic Caucus promoting a lender's commercial products to the Latino market,
<><> The most shocking example of bribery well-substantitated by Hogar's literature..... HOGAR announced it worked with Freddie Mac on a self-serving two-year examination of Latino homeownership in 63 congressional districts.
The "study" found Hispanic ownership on the rise thanks to "new flexible mortgage loan products" that the industry was adopting at the urging of Cong Baca's collusive coterie.
<><> HOGAR conned lenders into even more lenient down-payment and underwriting standards.
<><> As the subprime debacle unfolded, HOGAR declined repeated requests for comment despite the economic havoc their activities precipitated.
The mortgage schemes demonstrated the criminal activities of border violators with multiple identities---perhaps violent, terrorist-connected foreigners---colluding and conspiring to defraud private companies and public entities. And mortgage racketeering enterprises which employed sub rosa finance and business practices to carry out deceptions and frauds.
The alleged ring of swindlers---a Congresman, individuals with multiple identities, banks, insurance companies, mortgage brokers--might be charged with cheating the US govt, taxpayers and bank share holders out of hundreds of millions of dollars via an elaborate web of mortgage and bank frauds.
The mortgage Dreamers used multiple phony identities, fraudulent Social Security numbers, purchased from identity forgers in order to obtain govt-subsidized benefits.
L/E will find that individuals with multiple identities obtained fraudulent mortgages then flipped the houses at ever-higher prices to family member who then absconded to foreign countries, sticking banks (and taxpayers) with hundreds of millions in fraudulent mortgages.
BACKGROUND A Wall Street Journal investigative report related that, according to the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council examination of the borrowing spree, uncovered financial schemes by low-income housing groups, Hispanic lawmakers, a congressional Hispanic housing initiative, mortgage lenders and brokers, all colluding in fraduent schemes to increase homeownership among Latinos with forged documents which enabled massive fraud.
This was not simply the mortgage market at work. It was fueled by avarice, greed, and Congressional enabling fraudulent practices. In 2005 alone, mortgages to Hispanics jumped by 29%; Latinos with multiple fraudulent identities in low-paying jobs obtained subprime mortgages for prime properties---soaring to 169%.
(Research provided by Wall Street Journal. Some material excerpted from the NY Times).