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Re: Will the Justice Deparment and the SEC Go After Blatantly Illegal RICO Activity by the Nation's Most Prominent Hedge Funds?

I hate to sound like a broken record but somewhere along the line we have to have a million investor march campaign or a well orchestrated simultaneous demonstrations at all the key cities to garner enough press to make it onto prime time where the media has to cover it. In light of Madoff there probably will be many people wanting this coverage. A big protest in front of CNBC co-ordinated with an interview with Patrick on Fox would be nirvana. Maybe another full page ad like the old NCANS days. We have a lot more followers to drop a few scheclkles in the pot. We could call it dollars and dimes to stop the wall St. gangsters.

Re: Will the Justice Deparment and the SEC Go After Blatantly Illegal RICO Activity by the Nation's Most Prominent Hedge Funds?

How about everybody drop Max Keiser a e-mail. Does anyone have his address? This is his cup of tea. Or maybe we can make our own Video and have Tommy Vallerino run the direction, he is good.

Re: Will the Justice Department and the SEC Go After Blatantly Illegal RICO Activity by the Nation's Most Prominent Hedge Funds?

Chanos is a big malaka

Re: Will the Justice Department and the SEC Go After Blatantly Illegal RICO Activity by the Nation's Most Prominent Hedge Funds?

March in the street or stop paying taxes? Suppose we send a message to Obama that Wall Street is cleaned up or we simply stop paying taxes.

Re: Will the Justice Department and the SEC Go After Blatantly Illegal RICO Activity by the Nation's Most Prominent Hedge Funds?

z3peru..Now THAT is a GREAT IDEA......

Re: Will the Justice Department and the SEC Go After Blatantly Illegal RICO Activity by the Nation's Most Prominent Hedge Funds?

No law enfocement department is going to do spit. They are all bought and paid for from years back and they won't change.

I wonder if the reason Madoff is out on such a easy non bail set up is that some one in power wants him taken out on the sreeet before he blows the whisle of some of the DIRTY big boys in various regulatory positions. Maybe some so called poor defrauded widow could appear to shoot him and stop any change he might sing.

Re: Will the Justice Department and the SEC Go After Blatantly Illegal RICO Activity by the Nation's Most Prominent Hedge Funds?

I'm with old duffer. We've been hearing about "guns and badges" for years, while the intensity of the crimes and the number of them increase....there is no such thing as enforcement....until I see it, no rhetoric will change my mind...

Re: Will the Justice Department and the SEC Go After Blatantly Illegal RICO Activity by the Nation's Most Prominent Hedge Funds?

Make a concerted effort nationwide to stop paying taxes. Stop paying into 401-k plans. Wall Street will never listen unless they have a reason to. Once people realize Wall Street is a bad bet and stop sendig in their money and they have nothing to work will Wall Street start paying attention. The government as well.

The only power the people have is to deny them money.

Re: Will the Justice Department and the SEC Go After Blatantly Illegal RICO Activity by the Nation's Most Prominent Hedge Funds?

'Will the Justice Department and the SEC Go After Blatantly Illegal RICO Activity by the Nation's Most Prominent Hedge Funds?"


no

Re: Will the Justice Department and the SEC Go After Blatantly Illegal RICO Activity by the Nation's Most Prominent Hedge Funds?

Speaking of Deep Capture and its exposure of the scumbags, voting is now open for "best business blog." You can vote once daily. Early results have DeepCapture in first place. Help keep 'em there!

http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-business-blog/ (Vote for Deep Capture)

Pass it on....

Vote early. Vote often.

Re: Will the Justice Department and the SEC Go After Blatantly Illegal RICO Activity by the Nation's Most Prominent Hedge Funds?

Of course nothing will go anywhere. We have the best bought and paid-for regulators in the world. But now, the real question is - Why? And who's buying and paying for them.. We live under the foolish idea that our government is actually working for us. Total BS. Start digging and you might find the real answers. How do you fund black ops? What is going on in black ops?

Re: Will the Justice Department and the SEC Go After Blatantly Illegal RICO Activity by the Nation's Most Prominent Hedge Funds?

What the hell is it going to take to get the rule of law enforced?


The only thing that has ever changed the direction of this county when faced with injustice as complex as we have now is bloodshed.

Will the people rise before it is too late or will the "uber rich white men in control" maintain their grasp on this fading illusion of what we call the American Dream?

Bloodshed.

Re: Will the Justice Department and the SEC Go After Blatantly Illegal RICO Activity by the Nation's Most Prominent Hedge Funds?

I've been proposing for years that we all stop buying or selling stock on Fridays until they clear up the system. It's easy to do and would have a big impact.

It would have little impact on your portfolio value as you could still trade the other four days, but would reduce transactions and cut brokerage commissions (and our brokerage fees paid) by 20%.

The industry claims they want liquidity? We could quickly turn Friday's into a desert if we all start spreading the message virally on stock threads to not trade on Fridays.

Re: Will the Justice Department and the SEC Go After Blatantly Illegal RICO Activity by the Nation's Most Prominent Hedge Funds?

The system doesn’t want you to know, but you can request DRS “Direct Registration at Custodian” under the DTC Fast program. Call the company transfer agent for instructions for that agent on how to do it as it can vary from one transfer agent to the next.

If they tell you they can’t do it, they are just misinformed as it isn’t that common yet.

It’s exactly the same as a paper certificate, as your name gets registered on the company shareholder list. It’s a smart thing to do as there is no risk to you of losing anything, you get one full vote for one full share and no one can borrow your shares.

You don’t have to worry about your brokerage going bankrupt and getting in the SIPF lineup, but if you do decide to sell, it’s usually only a day or two to wire them into your brokerage account.

http://www.dtc.org/dtcpublic/html/lob2/prod6/drsdetail.htm

The FAST system is used to wire shares from one brokerage to another and by doing this, your account at the company transfer agent acts like a FAST participant and you can wire them out when you are ready to sell.

If everyone did this, there would be no shares at the DTC, yet everyone would be able to trade when they wanted to.

If we all do that and the Friday thing and we'd bring the system to its knees in a month.

Re: Will the Justice Department and the SEC Go After Blatantly Illegal RICO Activity by the Nation's Most Prominent Hedge Funds?

Bobo,

One of the Congressmen was quite indignant with the guy from SIPC and it was pointed out that SIPC had inadequate reserves. He implied it was a scam. This was answered with, we will be having a meeting. It was implied that the credit line from the Treasury should be inflation adjusted to over 4 billion.. The recovered assets will be separate and have no bearing on the amount of insurance. Unless a person got back enough to put them under the 500K amount, he would get the full amount. SIPC sent out 8000 forms.. multiply that by 500k... boom.. even with a larger line of credit, SIPC has liabilities after Madoff of 2.5 billion that they have to get from those who are insured. They have to get that money now... through larger contributions and keep bigger reserves. I would guess that would take a little liquidity out of the system as the victims are going to be reluctant to trust any investment. They can try to hang on to their homes until the market recovers, but that is a risk..using up what they have left.

The firms who have to cough up the money are perhaps going to be a little more into self-regulation.... Maybe trades and balances will be monitored by the SRO's. It will come down to.. we don't trust the other guy and his books need to be audited, but we don't want anyone looking at our proprietory models..... Blip.. skip.. they won't be able to see that what is good for everyone is good for them.

All of the assets and potential insurance liability is about 5 billion so far.. There may be something recovered from the sale of the firm.. if anyone wants to be associated with that name.. If they don't sell it, it should just eventually disappear as nobody would want to do business with them. Would you continue to do business with them.. even routing trades through them? The losses were overstated as there were unearned returns reported, but it probably was around 30 billion. The SEC's budget for 2009 is under a billion. One firm cost people more than the budget of the SEC for 30 years....

Re: Will the Justice Department and the SEC Go After Blatantly Illegal RICO Activity by the Nation's Most Prominent Hedge Funds?

Bobo wrote a blog on CTBG last year about this same issue!! Will their crookedness never end?

fwiw.. FFGO PR..

http://www2.barchart.com/news.asp?sym=FFGO


6-Jan-2009

Other Events


ITEM 8.01 OTHER EVENTS

The Company confirms that it has transferred an amount of 67,741,815 shares of Hunt Gold Corporation Common Stock (HGLC.PK) and not the previously stated amount of 40,059,532 shares of Hunt Gold Corporation Common Stock (HGLC.PK) to ensure the final Stock distribution. This was effected on December 22, 2008.

The Company and its Transfer Agent had calculated that the number of Hunt Gold Corporation Common Stock due to these holders in "Street Names" was in the amount of 27,681,135 shares of Hunt Gold Common Stock (HGLC.PK). These shares were placed in a "Reserve Account" at the Transfer Agent to Hunt Gold Corporation (HGLC.PK).

The DTCC has advised the Company that they calculated that an additional amount of 67,740,667 shares of Hunt Gold Corporation Common Stock (HGLC.PK) were required to complete the payment of this Stock Dividend by Fortress Financial Group, Inc. The Company undertook to; and has transferred the difference; that being in the amount of 67,741,815 shares of Hunt Gold Corporation Common Stock (HGLC.PK) to the "Reserve Account" held at the Transfer Agent to Hunt Gold Corporation (HGLC.PK).

Fortress Financial Group, Inc. effected this transfer of Hunt Gold Corporation shares of Common Stock (HGLC.PK) to ensure that all its eligible stockholders receive their shares in Hunt Gold Corporation (HGLC.PK) and to prevent any further delays in the payment of these Stock Dividend shares of Hunt Gold Corporation Common Stock.

The Transfer Agent to Hunt Gold Corporation (HGLC.PK) has confirmed that these shares of Hunt Gold Corporation Common Stock (HGLC.PK) were sent to the DTCC for distribution.

Neither the Company, nor Hunt Gold Corporation (HGLC.PK) or its Transfer Agent are responsible for the payment of these remaining dividends in Hunt Gold Corporation as this distribution to stockholders is being effected by the DTCC.

The Company has now completed the Stock Distribution in respect of the Hunt Gold Corporation (HGLC.PK) Stock Dividend.

Re: Will the Justice Department and the SEC Go After Blatantly Illegal RICO Activity by the Nation's Most Prominent Hedge Funds?

So in addition to screwing us over they are refusing to pay us back stolen monies also!!LOL!!

GAO report says SEC failing to close cases, distribute funds to harmed investors

WASHINGTON (Thomson Financial) - The Securities and Exchange Commission has failed to distribute about 80 pct of the funds set up in a 2002 program aimed at compensating investors injured due to violations of US securities laws, the Government Accountability Office said in a report released today.

GAO also said the SEC has harmed targets of securities fraud investigations by officially keeping investigations open long after the SEC has stopped investigating.

'We heard an allegation last year that many of the cases that the SEC tells Congress it's pursuing are really just at a standstill, waiting to be closed, and this report confirms it,' said Senator Charles Grassley, the Iowa Republican who requested the report.

'That's not fair to those under investigation and it misleads the public by implying that the SEC is more active than it really is,' he added.

The GAO report said the SEC's failure to distribute funds to harmed investors may be related to the fact that many cases remain open even though all activity has ceased.

Specifically, GAO said that only 1.8 bln usd has been distributed to investors out of the total 8.4 bln usd that has been awarded since 2002. The report said SEC officials cite problems identifying harmed investors and other barriers to distributing money and closing the cases.

However, the GAO report said the 'decentralized approach' to managing the program at the SEC may also be to blame. It added that keeping the cases officially open for longer than needed is unfair to targets of these cases.

The report said that as of March 2007, 300 of the cases open in one regional office were more than two years old or were no longer being pursued.

As a result of these findings, GAO said the SEC needs to develop new procedures for closing these investigations, as well as written policies and criteria for approving new investigations. GAO also said the SEC should create a 'comprehensive plan' to clarify how money is distributed to harmed investors.

http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/afx/...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
OH MY!!! Is the noose closing around the necks of those who file bogus complaints to the SEC?

Re: Will the Justice Department and the SEC Go After Blatantly Illegal RICO Activity by the Nation's Most Prominent Hedge Funds?

Bobo - A little off but still on topic. I have just become aware of a organization called the SIPC. Securities Investor Protection Corporation which was set up to pay back any losses fy the high rollers when a brokerage fails. Their response to my question of if individual investors burned by the stock market fraud were covered :

Pursuant to the Securities Investor Protection Act, SIPC protection is available only to customers of SIPC member broker-dealers registered with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission under section 15(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

In a word - NO, your not covered and no law has been set up to protect you. This law only covers the high rollers !! In other words if the broker dealer causes a company to fail that your invested in tough shit. If the broker dealer fails then the SIPC will give you up to $500,000. Like they will do for the people directly invested with Madoff. Bunch of crap. Out of curiosity I am trying to find out which senator was responsible for the SIPC act. Why would anyone be stupid enough to think that any of those bastards has any shame and why would anyone think they will clean up their act. Not going to happen.

Re: Will the Justice Department and the SEC Go After Blatantly Illegal RICO Activity by the Nation's Most Prominent Hedge Funds?

Bobo - check this out:
http://www.uscourts.gov/bankruptcycourts/bankruptcybasics/sipa.html#history

Re: Will the Justice Department and the SEC Go After Blatantly Illegal RICO Activity by the Nation's Most Prominent Hedge Funds?

This should make every reader here feel a little warmth in their hearts.. Thnaks Gary Aguirre Arlen Spector and Senator Grassley!!! And our usual suspects PB,DP, TEB. Thisis REAL GOOD NEWS!!!

New evidence found on hard drive.....

.....and the SEC reopens the Pequot case. Even issues a subpoena straight from "senior officials."


(Been on the road since o-dark-thirty. Sorry if posted earlier.)


Pequot Probe Reopened


by Scot J. Paltrow Jan 7 2009


Federal agents seek computer files from potential witness in an old insider-trading investigation. Millions in payments from Pequot Capital are in question.


Spurred by the surprise emergence of new evidence on a computer hard drive, the Securities and Exchange Commission has reopened a major insider trading investigation it was strongly criticized for dropping, people with knowledge of the case said.

The inquiry has to do with giant hedge fund Pequot Capital Management and its chairman and C.E.O., Arthur Samberg. Portfolio.com has learned that within the last two weeks the S.E.C. issued a subpoena in the case, a step taken only in a formal investigation approved by senior agency officials.

Reopening the investigation marks a new embarrassment for the beleaguered S.E.C., suggesting that, as in the Bernard Madoff case, it may have failed earlier to follow up adequately on strong indications of possible wrongdoing.

People close to the case said the subpoena is for the hard drive from a computer owned by David Zilkha, a former Microsoft employee who briefly worked for Pequot in 2001. The S.E.C. and other federal investigators already have printouts of e-mail messages on the hard drive.

Copies of the emails obtained by Portfolio.com appear to show Zilkha soliciting nonpublic information about Microsoft from a neighbor who was a more senior official at the software company.

The original S.E.C. investigation, which ended in 2006 without the agency taking any action, had looked into whether Samberg had made highly profitable trades based on confidential information from Zilkha about Microsoft earnings.

The earlier investigation, which had focused on Pequot trading in 2001, drew wide attention after the S.E.C. in 2005 fired the lawyer handling it. The S.E.C. lawyer, Gary Aguirre, contended he'd been fired for political reasons relating to a separate facet of the case: Whether Morgan Stanley C.E.O. John Mack may have given Samberg inside information relating to a planned acquisition by General Electric.

Aguirre claimed he was fired because higher ups at the S.E.C. didn't want him to depose the politically connected Mack. A subsequent investigation by two Senate committees, and by the S.E.C.'s own inspector general, backed Aguirre and found that the S.E.C. was wrong to have shut down the investigation.

Ever since, two Republican Senators, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Charles Grassley of Iowa, have pressed the S.E.C. to reopen the case.

The existence of the hard drive became known through Zilkha's contested divorce case in Connecticut. People close to the case say that Zilkha's now ex-wife had obtained and kept the hard drive from his home computer before they split up.

The drive contains email exchanges between Zilkha and Mark Spain, a more senior Microsoft official, in 2001, when they were both living in Redmond, Washington.

At the time, Zilkha was still working for Microsoft, although Samberg had offered him a job and was pressing him for information on Microsoft.

Copies of the newly obtained emails show, for example, that on April 7, 2001, Zilkha sent Spain an email with the subject line "Any visibility on the recent quarter?" The message said: "Hey there. Have you heard whether we will miss estimates? Any other info? David."


A reply from Spain the next day said: "march was the best march on record. made up the shortfall in us sub w2k pro major contributor. on trace for revised forecast (MYR)" That email appeared to indicate that Microsoft was likely to do much better than the substantially lower earnings analysts at the time were predicting. "w2k" pro evidently refers to sales of Microsoft's Windows 2000 program, and "MYR" to mid-year review.

As a product manager, Zilkha normally wouldn't have been privy to overall corporate earnings information.

The hard drive doesn't contain any evidence that Zilkha passed the information to Samberg. But the exchange between Zilkha and Spain appears to fill a key gap in evidence obtained during the original S.E.C. investigation. The timing coincides with Samberg trades in Microsoft puts and calls, and fits in with other email traffic between Samberg and Zilkha.

On April 6, 2001, for example, Samberg wrote to Zilkha that he owned Microsoft but was worried about reports that Microsoft was about to disclose weak profits. "Any tidbits you might care to lob in would be appreciated," Samberg wrote.

The records show that Samberg had been considering reducing his position in Microsoft at the beginning of April 2001, after he'd suffered losses and analysts had forecast that Microsoft would report a drop in earnings.

But on April 9, Samberg started buying thousands of Microsoft puts and calls, which had the effect of greatly increasing his bet that the stock would rise. When Microsoft disclosed better-than-expected earnings on April 19, Samberg reaped an indicated profit of more than $12 million on his added investment.

The day after Microsoft's earnings announcement, Samberg emailed Zilkha: "I shouldn't say this, but you probably have paid for yourself already."

While the newly obtained emails from Zilkha's home computer don't prove that he passed information to Samberg, people close to the case said it would provide additional basis for the S.E.C. to investigate whether Zilkha had communicated inside information to him.

The Senate committees' report in 2007 had specifically faulted the S.E.C. for not looking into any communication between Samberg and Zilkha between April 6 and April 9, 2001.

New questions about Samberg's relationship with Zilkha began cropping up a few weeks ago. As Portfolio.com reported, recently filed records in Zilkha's divorce showed that beginning in April 2007, Samberg paid Zilkha $1.4 million, and has promised to pay him an additional $700,000 in April 2009.

Senate investigators have been looking into whether the payments may have been some type of reward to Zilkha for not giving information to investigators. Zilkha had worked for Pequot for only a few months in 2001 before Samberg fired him, testimony from the S.E.C. investigation shows, and Zilkha has had no known link to Pequot or Samberg since then.

The Senate Judiciary and Finance committees recently demanded that Samberg turn over any records explaining the payments to Zilkha. He responded, but in the Senate on Tuesday Specter said that the information wasn't adequate and that the committee was trying to obtain more.

Meanwhile, Specter disclosed that he had written to S.E.C. chairman Christopher Cox on Dec. 29, demanding that the insider trading investigation be reopened.

The issue cropped up in the divorce case because Zilkha disclosed the payments on financial statements he is required to file with the court. The ex-wife, Karen Zilkha, is seeking to her ex-husband and Samberg about the payments under oath.

Aguirre, the former S.E.C. lawyer, went further than Specter. In a January 2, 2009 letter to Cox, he called for opening a criminal investigationinto "possible witness tampering, bribery, obstruction of justice" and conspiracy.

In addition to the Samberg payments to Zilkha, Aguirre wrote that prosecutors should look into Zilkha's apparent failure to have turned over the email records while the original investigation was still open. A December 2005 S.E.C. subpoena to Zilkha required him to turn over all email records of his contacts in 2001 with Microsoft and Samberg.

The S.E.C. declined to comment. David Zilkha didn't respond to messages left on his cell phone number seeking comment. His attorney, Henry Putzel III, said he wouldn't have any comment. Mark Spain didn't immediately respond to a message left at his office phone number at Microsoft. A Microsoft spokeswoman said the company wouldn't have any comment.

A Pequot spokesman said he wouldn't comment on specific developments but said: "We will cooperate fully with all requests for information and are confident that Pequot's trading in Microsoft was at all times proper."



http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/top-5/2009/01/07/Pequot-Investigation-Reopened

Re: Will the Justice Department and the SEC Go After Blatantly Illegal RICO Activity by the Nation's Most Prominent Hedge Funds?

Dr.Jim has some very good discussion at deepcapture.com about the central clearing party.. He should post it on his blog here.