FBI Forced To Divert Antiterrorism Agents To Help Untangle $50 Billion Madoff Swindle

Bloomberg:

The FBI has engaged in "triage," taking agents off terror and other crimes to respond to a cascade of financial frauds such as the alleged Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme, the head of the bureau's New York criminal division said.

Read the whole story: Bloomberg

Comments

[williamg]

The Madoff Saga: Perils of Fraudulent Conveyance

Say you were an investor in Madoff's funds. A few years back you decided to diversify. You asked Madoff for your money back and you got it. You then invested the proceeds in an array of other assets. Madoff then goes bust in a massive fraud. One day you get a letter from a bankruptcy trustee. The letter says that you need to repay a large chunk of your original investment in order to satisfy the claims of other investors who were less fortunate (or smart) than you. Is this fair? Is this right?


http://www.informationarbitrage.com/2008/12/the-madoff-saga-perils-of-fraudulent-conveyance.html

[Episcopagan]

You could only lose the profits you made. Not your original investment.

[williamg]

The basic structure and approach of the Uniform Fraudulent Conveyance Act are preserved in the Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act. There are two sections in the new Act delineating what transfers and obligations are fraudulent. Section 4(a) is an adaptation of three sections of the U.F.C.A.; § 5(a) is an adaptation of another section of the U.F.C.A.; and § 5(b) is new. One section of the U.F.C.A. (§ 8) is not carried forward into the new Act because deemed to be redundant in part and in part susceptible of inequitable application. Both Acts declare a transfer made or an obligation incurred with actual intent to hinder, delay, or defraud creditors to be fraudulent. Both Acts render a transfer made or obligation incurred without adequate consideration to be constructively fraudulent - i.e., without regard to the actual intent of the parties - under one of the following conditions:

(1) the debtor was left by the transfer or obligation with unreasonably small assets for a transaction or the business in which he was engaged;

(2) the debtor intended to incur, or believed that he would incur, more debts than he would be able to pay; or

(3) the debtor was insolvent at the time or as a result of the transfer or obligation.

http://www.law.upenn.edu/bll/archives/ulc/fnact99/1980s/ufta84.htm

[williamg]

Since it's a ponzi scheme, the actual funds that you are being paid back by Madoff, techinically, is other people's money:

[shockmagog]

I wouldn't like it if I got one of those letters, but from a purely logical standpoint, it's ill-gotten gains after all.

[INTUITE]

The FINANCIAL TERRORISM of Wall Street... one would think they were on the Al Qaeda payroll. They have brought more damage, cost and fear to America and the world than Bin Laden could have dreamt of.

[bascombe]

maybe al qaeda is on their payroll. al qaeda is a rumor.

[Bitsko]

Tell that to the almost 3,000 people who died one sunny morning seven years ago five blocks from my apartment in lower Manhattan.

[Chaimirija]

REALLY

[kellygrrrl]

oh mah gawh! you mean WE just dumped billions of dollars into the DomesticTe­rroristFun­d?
bygolly! whoda' thunk it?

[Chaimirija]

GAWDAMMIT!­!!!!!!!!!!­!!!!!!!!!!­!!!!!!!!!!­!!!!!!!!

(the word I use when I am REALY pissed)

[maxdenn]

GWB: Public enemy number one. By comparison to this crook, Madoff is just dealing in chump change.

[HWBII]

I'm replying to all of the last four posters: this is big. Really, really big. Let's remember this moment and take energy from it. Lots and lots and lots of things have to change, big time. These people are criminals, and must be prosecuted as such. No more Mr. Nice Guy.

[peterg76]

When a fraud is of this magnitude, why weren't antiterrorism agents on it to begin with? I have a feeling they would have been if Madoff had been a non-citizen Muslim.

[global commoner]

As the current system of greed and division erodes away, we must ask ourselves: Where does humanity go from here? Any new ways forward?

There is something than many leaders have almost come close to saying, but stopped short of...a word that would change everything for the better...a­n act that would set into motion a future brighter than any of us could imagine at this moment.

And a World Teacher is here, ready to emerge into the public, to introduce us to this magical concept which all nations can be a part of.

The word? The act? The key?

Sharing.

Look for this teacher to appear soon, with a bright star in the sky during day and night.


Sharing of food and basic resources, on an international level among nations (not personal levels), can once and for all end world hunger in the midst of plenty, preventable disease, and growing tension between have's and have not's. 30,000 people die every day, every week, every month...al­l because they're too poor to stay alive. We cannot comfortably live in relative luxury while half the world doesn't even have adequate food or clean water. Sharing is our only choice, and when we share great "miracles" will begin to happen in our lives. Technological breakthroughs and sanity will flourish. Creativity will color our institutions. Education will be enhanced. All things are possible when we work together.

www.WakeUpMankind.org

[FTP]

Just like the FBI - running around looking how to cover all the rich - we have now a full court press for Warren defense - However one might ask?
One must wonder about anyone - That does not know who he is really giving worship too.

Among the gods who were known to the Egyptians in very early times were Amen and his consort Ament, and their names are found in the Pyramid Texts

[williamg]

ok?

[myangeldog1]

huh?

[HWBII]

Stop the presses!!!! Fraud, in a self-regulating marketplace? Shut yo' mouth! Americans preying on other Americans is the most pressing problem facing the nation? Why, I never....

So sad, so depressing, so inevitable. I'm afraid that in one year's time what we will have found out about what's been going on is going to make us all feel very, very naive in retrospect. The Madoff scandal will seem like small potatoes compared with what we will discover about the public money being looted, even as I write this, in the bailout orgy.

We have met the enemy, and it is us.

[Mikeeee]

They should arrest everyone who works at the fed. The true threat has always been from there.

[Episcopagan]

Rupauline alert

[machivellianX]

hey episcopagan, I suppose you just love paying interest on debt which the fed prints? Show me where in the constitution there is such an authority for a central bank for the issuance of our currency? Shouldn't this be entirely in the hands of the congress?

[GrouchoMarxist]

The conspiracy theorist meeting is currently underway on the "O!" thread. There's still time to make it before they call roll.

[maxdenn]

GWB lied about the reasons for going to war with Iraq. And so far we've spent around $120 billion dollars on that fraud.

[GrouchoMarxist]

And a lot less time and money investigating it.

[Episcopagan]

More than that.

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home

$580bn and climbing (and that's just the "on the books" figures)

[begabug]

odd the rough equivilence between the iraq war expenditures, bailout funds and corp. bonus and pay packages

[maxdenn]

Typo. Meant to say $520 bil. And you're right. That's just what we know about. It's probably a much larger number.

[stanjz]

Welcome to reality FBI. Do the super wealthy want to drive through wastelands when they vist each other's mega or super mansions in the future? Is that the type of world they want to live in? The more they wage on the middle class and the poor, the more they will surrounded by unending bad news and misery! Did that thought ever makes its way into their heads?

[kay]

Well, no, and it won't now either. Look, they'll arrest about ten people in suits with a lot of fanfare, and Wall Street will be "cleaned up".

It happens every twenty years or so. It's not exactly a deterrent. What are the odds over you'll be one of the ten or so rounded up after the next decade-long crime spree?

Not high, I would think.

[SCG]

Sacrifices to the volcano.

[Bullwinkie]

Drive? The have the cash to fly their jets from their own private runways in the back yard, surrounded by Blackwater.

[dbdzen]

this financial crisis has presented terrorists, drug networks and mafioso organized crime bosses with a once in a lifetime opportunity to launder vast sums of cash into struggling businesses. If your small company is about to collapse and someone offers you half a million dollars in investment to keep it going when banks aren't lending, many people will take the money and not ask too many questions about the new shareholder.

In Europe, the mafia makes 100 billion a year in profits and their business is immune to the credit crunch. I hope the FBI is thinking about this too because it's very hard to undo later.

[HeIsTheOne]

Good night kids. One more day of school (and me up at 5:45) and then they're off til 1/5.

Be well.

HITO

[SurferKit]

Night.

[Misha-in-Texas]

Good night. Stay warm.

[myangeldog1]

Good nite.

[pinkc2]

they'd rather stay in school, trust me

[Episcopagan]

Just because your children feel that way does not mean that other children do.

Yours have a valid reason for not wanting to be around the house.