Financial scams : Investment firm head arrested

[DerekLeung]

New York CEO arrested over pyramid scheme
Posted: 27 January 2009 1549 hrs

A 'Tribute in Light' illuminates the night sky over lower Manhattan near Ground Zero


NEW YORK: Authorities have arrested the head of a New York investment firm in connection with a pyramid scheme that may have cost investors some 380 million dollars (288 million euros), US media said on Tuesday.

Nicholas Cosmo, chief executive of Agape World Inc., turned himself in late Monday after FBI and US Postal Inspection Service officials raided the financing firm's Long Island, New York headquarters, a newspaper said.

Sources close to the case told the Long Island Business News that Cosmo would be charged with defrauding investors out of 380 million dollars.

On its website, Agape World says it makes private high-interest commercial bridge loans to businesses.

The scheme, which allegedly defrauded up to 1,500 investors, was being investigated after officials took away file cabinets and boxes from two Agape World offices in New York, said Newsday newspaper.

Cosmo will be arraigned on Tuesday, and authorities are expected to hold a press news conference to discuss the case, Newsday said.

Cosmo deflected accusations he was running a Ponzi scheme when he spoke to Long Island Business News hours before his arrest.

Investors previously told the newspaper they suspected Cosmo "wasn't actually investing their money," but had instead "either spent their money or gambled it away".

The firm had offered returns for investor of up to 14 per cent in as little as 72 days, according to the Long Island paper.

Cosmo, 37, founded Agape World after being released from a federal prison in 2000, after he was caught defrauding investors of a Long Island securities dealer. He was subsequently ordered to undertake gambling therapy, said the newspaper.

The alleged scam comes with New York investors still reeling from revelations surrounding the massive purported Ponzi scam by Wall Street giant Bernard Madoff.

The former chairman of the Nasdaq stock market, was arrested on December 11 after allegedly confessing to running a 50-billion-dollar pyramid fraud, possibly the biggest in Wall Street history

 

[motormafia]

http://sammyboy.com/showthread.php?t=16156

Exclamation Elites GRAFTed public funds in billions, let firm die! same here!
Temasick is the same. We have to find the proof.

See what these scums did? Sucked the company dry 1st. Let suckers INVESTORS & public eat shit.

See what Lee Kuan Yew's high salaries and bonus policy can do? His CLEAN SYSTEM! Letting ministers follow the pay scales of these scums that can prevent corruption or LEEGALIZED corruption?

In Singapore the bastards just further even protect themselves by corrupted laws, want to escape punishment. In the USA they want to investigate and punish the bastards now. I hope Obama fry the bastard until we can all smell dog meet cooked.


CLEAN SYSTEM by this type of salary? Come Kiss My Ass LKY!

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/2009012...r-972e412.html

New York state to probe 'billions' in Merrill bonuses
AFP
AFP - Wednesday, January 28

NEW YORK (AFP) - - New York state officials said Tuesday they had begun a probe into "billions of dollars" in bonuses paid by investment giant Merrill Lynch days before a takeover announced by Bank of America.
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State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said his investigators had issued a subpoena to former Merrill chief executive John Thain and others to look at the "troubling" allegations.

The move is part of a probe into firms receiving aid from the US government's Troubled Asset Relief Program, a 700-billion-dollar rescue fund.

"Today, as part of our ongoing inquiry into executive compensation issues at institutions who have received TARP funds, my office issued subpoenas seeking the testimony of former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain, as well as the testimony of Bank of America chief administrative officer J. Steele Alphin," Cuomo said in a statement.

"These subpoenas are part of an ongoing inquiry into billions of dollars in bonuses paid by Merrill Lynch late last year just days before Merrill was taken over by Bank of America," Cuomo said.

"The fact that Merrill Lynch appears to have moved up the timetable to pay bonuses before its merger with Bank of America is troubling to say the least and warrants further investigation."

Cuomo said the probe would be "conducted cooperatively and in coordination" with the special inspector general for the US Treasury's TARP program, Neil Barofsky.

Thain resigned Thursday from Bank of America, in which he has been head of global banking, securities and wealth management, after the banking giant said that "his situation was not working out."

On January 16, Bank of America received 20 billion dollars in fresh government capital to help shore it up after acquiring Merrill Lynch.

BofA had already received 25 billion dollars in capital injections from the TARP, set up in early October to aid at-risk firms in the global credit crisis.

On September 15, Bank of America agreed to buy Merrill Lynch for 50 billion dollars in a transaction that created the world's largest financial services company.

It also saved Merrill from what some analysts felt was a possible collapse in the wake of a meltdown at Wall Street giant Lehman Brothers. Lehman filed for bankruptcy protection on September 15.

There was no government aid at the time of the Bank of America announcement but some analysts have speculated that US Treasury officials had pledged to offer capital to help BofA absorb Merrill.

Although the former Wall Street giant's results were not included in the overall Bank of America financial report, Merrill Lynch lost 15.3 billion dollars in the fourth quarter.