Fraud

Federal charges have been brought against 11 defendants for allegedly operating a massive fraud and bribery scheme through which they fraudulently obtained more than $18 million intended to help needy parents with public assistance for day care services at more than 30 day care centers. The defendants also were charged with conspiring to pay and receive more than $100,000 in bribes to facilitate the criminal scheme.  

Samuel E. Wyly and Charles J. Wyly, Jr., billionaire brothers from Dallas who are heavy donors to Republican causes, have been charged with violating federal securities laws governing ownership and trading of securities by corporate insiders.

Last week, the House passed S. 1508, the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act, by a vote of 414 to 0; the bill had been passed in June by the Senate by unanimous consent.  President Obama will be signing the bill today. 

We recently spoke with Michael Diaz, Jr., the Miami-based managing partner at Diaz, Reus & Targ, LLP, who has spent more than 20 years in private practice defending and investigating Latin American money laundering and public corruption cases. A Cuban-born bilingual international attorney, Diaz (pictured) is a former U.S.

Samuel Solanky, a/k/a "Samee Solanky," a pastor with a religious show on cable television known as "Vandana" broadcast in the New York City metropolitan area and elsewhere, is not likely to be able to continue broadcasting.

What’s bothering transaction banking executives nowadays? According to a poll conducted by Fundtech Ltd. at its recent Insights Conference, fraud monitoring is the biggest challenge these bankers face in payment processing. Fundtech found that more than half of the bankers surveyed (53 percent) said that their biggest challenge with regard to payment processing was fraud monitoring.

Pierce O’Donnell allegedly contributed $26,000 of his money in 2003 to the John Edwards for President campaign through 13 individuals – primarily employees of his law firm as well as some of his relatives.

A former employee of a financial services company pleaded guilty today for his participation in bid-rigging and fraud conspiracies related to contracts for the investment of municipal bond proceeds and other related municipal finance contracts.

It’s a beautiful morning in the northeastern U.S. – well, maybe except if you’re waking up as a Goldman Sachs senior exec. Morning reports suggest that the Justice Department is investigating whether to bring criminal charges against the firm. 

Here's a link to the SEC's complaint against Goldman Sachs for fraud, stemming from the Abacus CDO the firm marketed before the subprime mortgage collapse:  http://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2010/comp-pr2010-59.pdf.