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.
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3/07/05
REFERENCE Israel takes action; Bank Hapoalim and its Trust helped others evade Israeli laws
Israeli police investigating a money-laundering scheme have arrested 22 employees of the country's largest bank, Bank Hapoalim. Authorities say the employees of Bank Hapoalim helped customers transfer hundreds of millions of dollars without filing the reports required by Israeli law. Police say the arrested employees all worked at the same branch in Tel Aviv.
While no customers have yet been arrested, they say the case involves many individuals and companies overseas.
In a news conference Sunday, France was the only foreign country named by police as working with investigators. Authorities say their year-long investigation involves 80 bank accounts and 170 customers, informs VOA News.
According to FT News, Israeli police said they had made a number of arrests in connection with a year-long money laundering investigation at Bank Hapoalim, Israeli’s largest bank.
Twenty-two people from the Tel Aviv branch and Bank Hapoalim Trust were arrested or detained for questioning, said Gil Kleiman, police spokesman. He said funds from different countries, including France, passed through the branch for money laundering.
Israel was only removed from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's money laundering blacklist in 2002. Police are checking more than 80 Hapoalim accounts linked to 170 customers including individuals and companies. http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:R98LKOVxtfYJ:newsfromrussia.com/accidents/2005/03/07/58565.html
I think that's the gist of this legislation - it's practically a Ponzi Schemers Protection Act (Ponzi Spa, for short)...
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.
So do Obama and Dems in government, but they have the legal protection for their racket. To mix Willie Sutton and Gordon Gekko metaphors, Big Government is good because that's where the big money is.
Additional info on SEC and R. Allen Stanford:
Report Says SEC Missed Many Shots at Stanford - WSJ (sub), 2010 April 17, by Michael R. Crittenden and Kara Scannell
The report by the SEC's inspector general says SEC examiners concluded four times between 1997 and 2004 that Mr. Stanford's businesses were fraudulent, but each time decided not to go further. It singles out the former head of the SEC's enforcement office in Fort Worth, Texas, accusing him of repeatedly quashing Stanford probes and then trying to represent Mr. Stanford in private practice. The former SEC official, Spenser Barasch, is now a partner at law firm Andrews Kurth LLP. He couldn't be reached for comment. ... The inspector heneral referred Mr. Barasch for possible disbarment from practicing law. ..... SEC Inspector General David Kotz's report suggests the agency's mistakes in the Stanford case were in part the result of a culture that favored easily resolved cases over messier ones. Cases such as the alleged Stanford fraud were not considered "quick hit" or "slam dunk," and examiners were discouraged from pursuing them, Mr. Kotz found. Unlike the Madoff case, in which Mr. Madoff's highly technical descriptions of his supposed trading misled the SEC's examiners, the agency quickly recognized signs of an apparent Ponzi scheme at Mr. Stanford's operation. Examiners noted that Mr. Stanford was promising to pay investors a return well above the market, without any apparent way of delivering on that promise. In 1997, just two years after Mr. Stanford's businesses registered with the agency, a Fort Worth examination official told her branch chief to "keep your eye on these people" — a reference to Mr. Stanford — "because this looks like a Ponzi scheme to me and some day it's going to blow up." That was among the first such findings, and it was followed by similar conclusions in 1998, 2002 and 2004, according to the inspector general. ..... SEC enforcement officials also appear to have ignored warnings from insiders at Stanford's operations. The report said a letter was forwarded to the SEC in October 2003 by the National Association of Securities Dealers. Using all capital letters, it warned that the Stanford businesses "will destroy the life savings of many." ..... The Securities and Exchange Commission suspected Texas financier R. Allen Stanford of running a Ponzi scheme as early as 1997 but took more than a decade to pursue him seriously, according to a report further tarring the agency that missed Bernard Madoff's huge fraud.