Thomas Petters: Accused Ponzi Schemer Caught On Tape: "This Is One Big F---ing Fraud"

bloomberg.com:

Oct. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Petters Group Worldwide LLC founder Thomas Petters, charged with overseeing a $3.5 billion Ponzi scheme, admitted he knew his phony deals over electronic equipment amounted to a crime, a prosecutor said.

Petters, 52, duped hedge funds into funding fictitious shipments of TVs and DVD players for more than a decade, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Dixon told jurors in opening statements of Petters's fraud trial yesterday. Federal agents arrested Petters after one of the executive's subordinates alerted them to the scheme, Dixon added.

Read the whole story: bloomberg.com

Comments

[iwasblindtoletyougo]

REAL unemployment is DOUBLE the 'official' statistics. Government has been playing major games with all stats for a while now - both parties are to blame.

good articles to http://financeopinionss.blogspot.com

Also Barney Frank sucks.

[WindySailor]

Fraud at this level should earn a death penalty.

[blueken]

I place the blame for this squarly on the Fed and the SEC from the Raygun years right throug to GW Bush. Watch "The Warning" on Public Television. Allen Greenspan is quoted as saying he saw no reason to "regulate fraud". His faith in the "invisible hand of the market place" was so strong that he felt enforcement was un-necessary and counter productive. It's a little to early to tell, but I pray that the present administration will tackle this systemic problem. Before Raygun the world looked to invest in the United States because we had sensible regulations that were enforced. Now, not so much. Why do you think China, Brazil and Russia want to break thier dependency on the dollar? It is because they have lost faith in it. You know what, I'm not too far behind. I for one don't want to leave our children and grandchildren with a third world economy. Time to get the ship back on course.

[ibsteve2u]

Put the guy in a suit, and he looks like any one of a number of our Republican members of Congress.

Same ethos, too. I mean, what is the difference to the American people between a Ponzi scheme and "trickle-down" economics?

Do the American people get anything out of either?

[gorgol]

This WHOLE COUNTRY is nothing but a PONZI SCHEME...gaad....I feel sick to my stomach...this stuff is EVERYWHERE.

[neesy08]

who is overseeing these organizations?

[gs-425]

The feds are supposed to be. Oooo, I know, lets have them run healthcare too.

[gorgol]

Medicare is being ripped off to the tune of over $100 BILLION a year...because of too "liberal" rules on how funds are given to "health care stores"...(60 Minutes two weeks ago)...
not enough investigators...so, I agree.....I think of the waste, fraud, were taken care of in medicare....there would be enough for health care for EVERYONE

[tucsoncindy]

Mafia scam but made legal by the Stock Market...so why do we need Regulations again...
kind of makes your stomach get upset.

[Freenation]

one more eats dust...

[vascopyjama]

Should have got himself a job as a banker. Pays better and you don't get arrested.

[Rmath]

How many more Madoffs are still out there? Does anybody really believe all the bad guys have been caught?

[duxguts]

Apparently they only get caught if the people they ripped off are mostly wealthy and well connected. That's what happened to Bernie.

[TeeLolly]

How many banksters are still working on Wall Street?

[weatherwaxx]

Pretty well ALL of them.

[Hawkman4]

Everyone convicted of fraud should have FRAUD tattooed on their forehead so nobody will trust them again with anything.

[bynddrvn5]

Over a decade!!! WTF, seriously WTF! There is no one protecting the consumer in the USA.

We need to review the government agencies to see what went wrong. If they don't know what they are doing they need to be fired or retrained, if they need more people - add more people. Now!

[Uosdwis]

Wow. That kinda shoots holes in anything the defense says.

[WilliamL]

the sad fact is, jail time, life even, will not be justice for the damage these sorry s.o.b.s have done to so many people and non-profits.

the need to toss his ass into general population.

introduce him to hard time and fear like he caused so many who feared due to the loss of their life savings along with the fear he caused people with disabilities who depened upon donations, charitable funds and such. I know this is not nice to some and do not care. These people commited financial violence and deserve hard time and dailly beatings.

that would be justice.

[rivrgrrl]

Having worked in a prison, I can assure you that boredom and being told what to do every minute of every day is the worst punishment inmates go through.

But the beatings could be considered icing on the cake of punishment for these perps.

[weatherwaxx]

No, that would turn the jailers into m0nsters. Not good for the country, or the human race in general.

[WilliamL]

Not the jailers, the residents.

You know there are some very unhappy residents who lost their ass in the market due to folks like this guy.

[drjasonmd]

How is it that these multibillionaire scam artists haven't all gone to ground and disappeared by now? You'd think with all that wealth, they could easily just disappear, yet they seem to hang around long enough to be arrested.

[tiredofthesameoldstuff]

Most of their wealth is fictious and what ill gotten gains they got were used to maintain the illusion of wealth. Thing is they often cannot run because that would mean abandoning the illusion they have built up. They don't want to go off somewhere and live like regular folks or even poor people.

[rivrgrrl]

Yup.