Banker Arrests for August 1, 2012

Bankers and Brokers and Inside Traders Arrested, Oh My!

This information was copied from conciously connecting which is a site designated to keeping track of the arrests and convictions of the bankers fraud and scandals. Please bookmark the site to stay updated. This list is from August 1, 2012 forward. August 1 begins with arrest/conviction #133. Note: when this was copied and pasted, the blog renumbered the sequence, so #1 is actually #133 in the number of arrests.

1. 8/1/12: Former Bank Officer Faces Prison, Millions in Restitution for Embezzlement - (Source: Tulsa World, Okla.) – A former bank officer has been sentenced to four years and nine months in prison and ordered to pay millions of dollars in restitution after pleading guilty in what a federal prosecutor called “the largest internal bank theft” in the history of the Tulsa-based Northern District of Oklahoma. Janice Mora Adams, a former senior vice president for private banking and internal control officer of Peoples Bank, stated in court documents that she initiated fraudulent loans and accounts as part of a scheme in which she embezzled funds from May 2004 until February 2010.
2. 8/1/12: The 3 musketeers of Destiny Group - While the Anti Corruption Commission has already pressed two separated cases against Destiny Group mastermind Mohammad Rafiqul Amin and his gang, the top ranking musketeers of Destiny Group, who became billionaires from being mere paupers, are at the focal point of the cheated investors as well as various intelligence agencies in Bangladesh. It may be mentioned here that, ACC lodged the two separate cases against Mohammad Rafiqul Ami and Lt. Gen [Retired] Harunur Rashid along with 10 others of the fraudulent Multi Level Marketing [MLM] company. They are Destiny 2000 Chairman Mohammad Hossain, its nine directors Gofranul Huq, Sayed-ur Rahman, Mejbah Uddin Swapan, Syed Sazzad Hossain, Irfan Ahmed Sunny, Farah Diba [wife of Mohammad Rafiqul Amin], Jamsed Ara Chowdhury, Sheikh Tayebur Rahman and Nepal Chandra Biswas.
3. 8/1/12: Malaysian opposition figure arrested for breaching bank law - A senior Malaysian opposition politician, who made a series of revelations on alleged government wrongdoing, was arrested on Wednesday for disclosing bank details related to a high-profile corruption case involving the family of a former minister. The charges against Rafizi Ramli, head of strategy for the opposition Pakatan Rakyat party, adds to a tense political atmosphere ahead of elections that must be held by early next year and which are expected to be closely fought. He pleaded not guilty to charges under the Banking and Financial Services Act in the Shah Alam sessions court. He faces the possibility of a three-year jail term which may scupper his chances of standing for parliament.
4. 8/1/12: FINRA expels Biremis Corp from securities industry - Biremis Corp, a brokerage that handled U.S. trading for a now-defunct day trading company accused of abuses, has been expelled from the U.S. securities industry along with its chief executive officer,Wall Street’s self-regulator said on Tuesday.Biremis and Chief Executive Officer Peter Beck did not have an adequate supervision program in place for detecting and preventing certain manipulative trading activities between 2007 and 2010, according to a settlement with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority announced on Tuesday. Biremis, a broker-dealer, was known as known as Swift Trade Securities USA Inc until 2004. Among the problems was a lack of procedures to detect and prevent “layering,” a scheme that involves placing sham orders intended to influence market prices and then canceling those orders. In addition, the company did not have an adequate anti-money laundering program, even though its only business was to execute transactions for day traders worldwide.
5. 8/1/12: Former UBS bankers cheated cities by rigging bond bids: U.S. - Three former UBS executives helped deceive U.S. cities and towns by operating a scheme to rig bids to invest municipal bond proceeds, a federal prosecutor said on Monday at the start of the bankers’ criminal trial in New York. Peter Ghavami, Gary Heinz and Michael Welty were charged in 2010 by the U.S. Department of Justice as part of its broad investigation of the $3.7 trillion U.S. municipal bond market. The probe has focused on rooting out schemes to fix prices and rig bids on bond transactions, and has ensnared some of the world’s largest banks. The three men “steered financial contracts to their friends in exchange for kickbacks and other favors,”.
6. 8/1/12: Goldman to pay $26.6 mln in mortgage debt class-action - Goldman Sachs Group Inc has agreed to pay $26.6 million to settle a lawsuit by investors who claimed they were misled into buying securities backed by risky loans from the now-defunct subprime mortgage lender New century Financial Corp. Investors led by the Public Employees’ Retirement System of Mississippi claimed that Goldman’s boilerplate disclosures for the $698 million GSAMP Trust 2006-S2 were false and misleading by failing to reveal how New Century had ignored its own underwriting standards and used inflated appraisals. They also faulted Goldman’s due diligence for failing to find the problems when it bought New Century loans and packaged them into securities for the 2006 offering. New Century went bankrupt the following year.
7. 8/1/12: MF Global corporate trustee sees return of all customer funds - Customers of the failed futures brokerage MF Global got mixed signals on Wednesday about their chances of recovering all of a $1.6 billion shortfall after two trustees involved in the firm’s liquidation offered different outlooks about their chances of success. In prepared testimony before the Senate Agriculture Committee, former FBI Director Louis Freeh — who is responsible for winding down MF Global’s parent company — told lawmakers he is quite confidence that “all of the customers of MF Global Inc eventually will be made whole.” But James Giddens, the trustee for the broker-dealer unit tasked with recovering customers’ missing funds, offered a less rosy picture, saying legal obstacles to recovering the money still remain. “We very much would like to pay every customer 100 percent, however, it will be a time consuming, difficult uphill battle,” Giddens told the Senate panel.
8. 8/1/12: Siris, Guerrilla Capital Settle SEC Suit Over China Firm - Fund manager Peter Siris and his Guerrilla Capital Management agreed to pay more than $1.1 million to settle allegations by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of “wide-ranging misconduct” in connection with a Chinese reverse-merger firm. The SEC today announced the settlement with Siris, a former writer for the New York Daily News and author of “Guerrilla Investing: Winning Strategies for Beating the Wall Street Professionals.” The agency also settled with Guerrilla Capital and a related firm, Hua Mei 21st Century LLC.
9. 8/1/12: Lebanese Bank Case Tests U.S. Privacy Law - A judge’s looming decision in a case that has snarled a fugitive Lebanese woman and eight financial firms could challenge how bank-privacy laws are interpreted in the U.S. Judge Ellen M. Coin of New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan is weighing whether to force banks such as Banco Santander SA, Credit Suisse Group AG, HSBC HoldingsPLC and UBS AG UBSN.VX to turn over information about private accounts tied to the woman, Rana Koleilat, a former secretary at Lebanon’s Al-Madina Bank who later became one of its top advisers, fled the country in 2005 following her conviction by a Lebanese court of a massive fraud that led to the bank’s collapse in 2003. The New York civil suit, filed earlier this year by Al-Madina’s founder and majority owner, Adnan Abu Ayyash, seeks the recovery of more than $3 billion allegedly stolen by Ms. Koleilat, according to court filings.
10. 8/1/12: Morgan Stanley Allegedly Participated In Insider Trading In Greek Bank Merger - ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greek court officials say a prosecutor has brought misdemeanor charges against Morgan Stanley for alleged insider trading in connection with a planned local bank merger. The charges made public Wednesday concern a failed takeover bid for Alpha Bank by National Bank of Greece in early 2011. Morgan Stanley acted as an adviser for NBG in its bid. Court officials said the prosecution followed an investigation into reports that Morgan Stanley bought shares in Alpha during a period from before the merger talks were made public until shortly after they collapsed. The officials said Alpha’s shares gained 33 percent at the time. The charges, if proven, carry a maximum 5-year prison sentence. They did not name specific Morgan Stanley officials, whom a further investigation will seek to identify.
11. 8/1/12: Last of 12 Mortgage-Fraud Defendants Agrees to Plea Deal - (Source: The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio — The last of a dozen defendants admitted his involvement today in a central Ohio mortgage-fraud scheme. Kevin E. Murphy, 51, of Estate View Drive South near Gahanna, faces up to eight years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of theft. He remains free on bond and is to be sentenced on Sept. 27 by Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Pat Sheeran. Murphy reached a plea agreement with prosecutors as jurors were being selected for his trial. His wife, Mary R. Murphy, 51, pleaded guilty on Friday to one count of theft and two counts of receiving stolen property. The couple was part of a wide-ranging plot to fraudulently obtain mortgages for homes with inflated values. Most of the loans, ended in foreclosure.
12. 8/2/12: Former Covington Bank Chief Executive Officer Pleads Guilty to Bank Fraud Scheme - (Source: FBI) – NEW ORLEANS—Richard S. Blossman, Jr., age 52, a resident of Covington, Louisiana, plead guilty today before U.S. District Judge Nannette Jolivette Brown to a two-count bill of information alleging one count of bank fraud and one count of false statements, announced U.S. Attorney Jim Letten. He is scheduled for sentencing on November 15, 2012. According to documents filed in court today, Blossman was the chief executive officer (CEO) of Central Progressive Bank, headquartered in Lacombe, Louisiana, in St. Tammany Parish. In December 2011 Central Progressive Bank (CPB) failed and was taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The assets of Central Progressive Bank were then sold to FNBC Bank.
13. 8/2/12: AmeriFirst Securities Fraud Case Lands Sentence for Seven Defendants - (Source: FBI) - DALLAS—The final sentencing was held today in the massive AmeriFirst securities fraud case, prosecuted in the Northern District of Texas, that has resulted in a total of seven felony convictions and prison sentences up to 25 years, announced U.S. Attorney Sarah R. Saldaña of the Northern District of Texas. Today, John Porter Priest was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Barbara M. G. Lynn to one year in federal prison. Priest, 43, of Ocala, Florida, was sentenced by Judge Lynn to one year in federal prison and ordered to pay $4,742,946 in restitution. He pleaded guilty in September 2010 to one count of securities fraud based on his role in the Secured Capital Trust scheme.