White-collar criminals face stiffer sentences

Well this is a subtle step forward. Tougher sentences are now in force for people found guilty of white-collar crimes. Justice Minister Rob Nicholson says the federal government's long-promised white-collar crimes legislation comes into effect today. The stiffer penalties include a mandatory two-year prison sentence for fraud over $1 million.

Two years for stealing a million dollars and one year for growing a few pot plants. This is a prime example of how no two people disagree on every issue. In the last election debate Michael Ignatieff argued against mandatory minimum sentences. He said the US is a failed system. We are not obligated to follow a failed system. One thing he said I agree with, one thing he said I disagree with.

I totally agree, where the US has failed, we need not repeat that mistake. Enron and the California prison system are two examples. Privatizing the prisons is insane. Mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent crime is nonsense. It has created a manufactured emergency wherein their prison system was ordered to release one quarter of it's prison population due to over crowding.

Yet I do think that mandatory minimum sentences for violent offenses and trafficking hard drugs is not only appropriate but crucial in repairing our broken judicial system in British Columbia. Mandatory minimum sentences for growing pot prevents us from being able to afford to implement mandatory minimum sentences for violent crime and selling hard drugs.

Likewise I think addressing white collar crime and implementing mandatory minimum sentences for it are a good thing. Capping it at a million dollars is rather high. Currently there are endless investment frauds for under a million dollars that combine to constitute a substantial amount of money. It's like a crack dealer having runners back and forth so he only gets caught with a small amount at one time thus avoiding a larger penalty.

We need to address white collar crime and investment fraud. However, publicly patting ourselves on the back for creating one white collar crime law then deregulate the banks and stock exchange making enforcing that law more difficult. If we are sincere and if we genuinely want to address the kind of white collar crime that created the Greek financial crisis, we need regulation as well as mandatory minimum sentences.

Interesting to note, Organised Crime Accounts for Greater Proportion of White-Collar Crime. This is even tied to a drive by shooting in Shaughnessy on July 7 2007.

BC Hydro is becoming a new Enron

Enron is a good case to study. Talk about BC Rail being plagued with insider sell offs. Enron was the disastrous result of the United States trying to privatize it's energy. That rise and fall is the perfect example of corporate corruption leading to investment fraud.

Yesterday the Vancouver Sun reported that Questionable bookkeeping methods by BC Hydro have put ratepayers on the hook for $2.2 billion in public debt – with no apparent plan in place to recover the money, Auditor-General John Doyle warned in an audit report on Wednesday.

Doyle said that if Hydro stays with the practice of deferring large debts rather than paying them back and balancing its books each year, the total debt will swell to $5 billion by 2017.

This is not a plea to let BC Hydro raise it's rates. It's a plea for greater public accountability which the Campbell Government removed. Since there was such a public resistance to the privatization of BC Hydro, the Campbell Government pulled the carpet out from underneath it. They separated it into two. They privatized Terasen Gas and they privatized energy developers. The people that Hydro buys the power from. It was a dirty deal.

The private energy developers are mandated to make a profit and sell the power to BC Hydro at above market rates just because it can. This is what has strategically created BC Hydro's debt so they can justify privatizing the whole thing and creating another Enron disaster. While Christy Clark smiles and giggles her way to stardom of course. BTW getting your picture taken with Preston Manning doesn't make her a conservative. Just a Neo Con.

Goldman Sachs ripped off European Taxpayers

The Greek financial crisis is in the news again and is effecting our economy as well. We've talked about how the Greek financial crisis was the result of investment fraud. Jochen Zeitz, the outgoing chief executive of Puma, claimed: "This is about systematic evasion and embezzlement." What was public money is now, mysteriously, become very private money.

The former manager of a well known and reliable insurance company in Rhodes, convinced Rhodian investors with substantial financial standing, to redeem their mutual fund units and reinvest in virtual and non-existent securities funds, which he had invented. Greek "Madoffs" are springing up like mushrooms.

Well the latest news is that after this investment fraud was allowed to create a financial crisis in Greece, Goldman Sachs helped hide that debt so they could join the EU and get a tax payers bailout. This is causing investors to call for more regulation not less. Deregulation enables investment fraud.

Henry Paulson was the former CEO of Goldman Sachs and became the US treasury secretary under George W. Bush. Goldman Sachs became Obama's #1 Private Contributor.

Citigroup pays court settlement

The S.E.C. announced that Citigroup has agreed to pay $285 million to settle a civil complaint that it had defrauded investors in a mortgage securities deal. They would not have paid the settlement if the allegations were false. Citigroup bailed out with tax dollars for committing investment fraud. Go figure.

Organized crime, Investment Fraud, Basi-Virk

Here's another story of organized crime connected to investment fraud. Ricardo Francis Scarpino was a drug dealer with a lengthy criminal record and was shot dead outside a Vancouver restaurant in 2008.

His lengthy criminal record is interesting but so is his involvement with investment fraud. This Supreme Court decision states Ricardo Scarpino, one of the promoters of the investment scheme, ordered $5 million worth of gold bullion which was delivered to TGR and then vanished. To date, the plaintiffs say they have received no funds from the defendants, and that MDLP’s bank account balance is zero. Scarpino is now dead, and TGR is inactive.

Another inherently interesting fact is that Scarpino used to be the ring leader in a cocaine importation scheme in Victoria, BC around the same time as the RCMP allegations of drug and organized crime related to the search warrant for the BC Rail Bassi Virk trial.

It was described as Victoria's largest-ever drug bust, which took in millions of dollars worth of cocaine after a three-month undercover investigation that had ties to Naniamo. What I'm wondering is what ever happened to the drug and organized crime allegation in the BC Rail case that provided grounds for the initial search warrant? There's another organized crime group in Naniamo but I can't seem to think of the name of it off hand...

Tony Pires and LA Embroidery

This is an interesting story. We read that the owner of LA Embroidery is Tony Pires. Tony is a member of the Hells Angels. David Baines wrote an interesting article in the Vancouver Sun back on July 01, 2006. He normally deals in investment fraud and the stock market. It creates an interesting connection between stock market fraud and organized crime.

The article expresses his frustration trying to explain to Wally Oppal when he was the BC Attorney-General that the B.C. Securities Commission has not been able to contain the proliferation of Vancouver-related companies that are being floated on the lawless OTC Bulletin Board and "pinks sheets" in the United States. Talking to Wally the limp fish was like baning your head against a wall.

He cites 880 companies that have been perpetuating Vancouver's infamous sub-culture of chicanery, where crooks and accountants and lawyers and other professionals come together to produce stock market scams, most of which are foisted on investors in the United States, Germany, or other foreign countries. The net result is that Vancouver's reputation as a haven for scams is as bad as ever.

Despite the fact that we no longer have a Vancouver Stock Exchange because it was shut down for being corrupt. It was full of fake pump and dump scams. That's why we don't have a stock market in Vancouver any more.

David Bainesn referred to a fake company called De Beira Goldfields Inc which was set up by Vancouver longshoreman Mike Fronzo which was then handed over to a couple of Australian promoters. The Australian promoters were introduced to De Beira by Ralph Biggar, a former broker with Georgia Pacific Securities in Vancouver.

Biggar is no stranger to bulletin board companies. In 2003, he set up Tora Technologies Inc., which has no appreciable assets except a services agreement with a Vancouver company called LA Embroidery Inc. The agreement gives Tora the right to market LA's custom embroidery services via the Internet. The owner of LA Embroidery is Tony Pires. For granting the rights, Pires was given 250,000 shares.

Pires is an interesting business partner, to say the least. He is a full-patch member of the Nomads, an elite chapter of the Hells Angels.

On Thursday, I asked Biggar whether he knows Pires is a member of the Hells Angel. He refused to answer, instead referring questions to his lawyer, Gary Snarch. But that didn't get me very far, either. "My advice is not to talk to you," said Snarch.

There are some interesting links between Tora Technologies and De Beira Goldfields. As mentioned, Biggar has been involved in both companies. In addition, Fronzo and Pires have been co-investors in two unrelated deals.

In 1999, they were among a half-dozen investors in a U.S. company called Value Software Inc. The same year, they participated in private placements in International En-R-Tech Inc., a Vancouver Stock Exchange company. Other investors included:

- Ronald Lising, a full-patch member of the East End chapter of the Hells Angels. In 2001, Lising and Pires' brother, Chico, were convicted of trafficking drugs through No. 5 Orange strip club and the Marble Arch Hotel. Each was sentenced to four and half years in jail.

- John Punko, another full-patch member of the East End chapter of the Hells Angels. In 2001, he was convicted of threatening the Crown counsel who was prosecuting Lising and Chico Pires on their drug trafficking charges.

The fact that Fronzo invested in these deals along with several Hells Angels may be entirely coincidental. I tried to ask him about this on Friday, but he did not return my phone calls.

Let's pause for a minute and consider the magnitude of what we are now looking at. A company called Grant Street Holdings Ltd. owns the Burnaby Nomands clubhouse. All the company's directors - Francesco (Frank) Amoretto, Bob Green, Tony Pires and Gino Zumpano - are well-known members of the Nomads. Green is listed as president of Grant Street Holdings, while Pires is secretary.

Technologies Inc was tied to LA Embroidery Inc which was owned by Tony Pires. Tora Technologies has links with De Beira Goldfields. In 1999 Fronzo and Pires were involved with U.S. company called Value Software Inc. along with John Punko and Ron Lising. Are we beginning to see the magnitude of the problem yet?

David Baines more recnelty reported on Ialta Industries Ltd. One of its major shareholders was Nomad Glen Jonathan Hehn. The settlement agreement notes that in January 2007, the B.C. Securities Commission issued a cease-trade order against Ialta for failure to file financial statements.

Baines also discusses a scam run by Marcel Rada who also became president of Montrose Exploration Ltdm of which Glen Hehn was the largest shareholder. Ralph Biggar, tied to Tora Technologies Inc, LA Embroidery Inc and Tony Pires, was also a shareholder in Montrose along with Glen Hehn.

Another good book about the scams of the Vancouver stock exchange is Flim Flam by Mark Bourrie. Investment fraud ruins pensions and destabilizes markets. When organized crime gets involved we should all take notice.

Banksters

William Black was a regulator during the Savings and Loan scandal in the /80's. He wrote an interesting book called "The best way to rob a bank is to own one." He claims that the current financial crisis and economic meltdown is driven by fraud. Micheal Moore interviewed him in his movie Capitalism a love story where he stressed the difference between Capitalism and Democracy. Greed is not good. With regards to bank deregulation it has been said, When you destroy financial regulation you create a financial catastrophe.

Just for the record, you're not going to hear me make statements like, share the wealth. You're going to hear me make statements like stop the fraud. Stop letting white collar criminals steal from the public purse. It has nothing to do with left or right. It's just common sense. If you let criminals steal from the public purse, there will be less money to balance the budget which adversely affects the economy. Privatizing and deregulating everything simply opens the door for fraud and theft. We've seen it with the prisons. We've seen it with Enron. We've seen it with the Banks and we've seen it with Wall Street. Or in our case the VSE.

US Debt Fraud

I'm having a little bit of trouble with the math. The US's national debt is in the news of late and I'm trying to pinpoint just how much of that debt was stolen from fraud. The day before 9/11 Donald Rumsfeld said the Pentagon can't account for 25% of what it spends and has lost $2.3 trillion. That is mucho dinero.

We're told that the US debt has now hit $13 trillion. The reason people are concerned is because it's starting to over take the GDP. So $2.3 trillion missing is a large chunk of that debt.

The invasion of Iraq was based on a lie. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Another $3 trillion later Bush said "Mission Accomplished." That's another $3 trillion stolen from fraud. Add that $3 trillion to the mission $2.3 trillion and we get $5.3 trillion which is an even bigger chunk of the $13 trillion debt.



England is also reeling from over expenditures and much of their debt has result from what John Rees from Stop the War Coalition refers to an addiction to war. England spend a lot of money on the invasion of Iraq and their bank bail out. Now they are scrambling to pay for that by stealing pensions and recking havoc on public programs.

John Rees pointed out that on the very first night of the attack on Libya, over 100 cruise missiles were fired. Those missiles are $100 million worth of resources blown up in one night. It doesn't take a great deal of imagination to calculate how many places at University that would mean. How many libraries that would mean. How many hospitals that would mean.

The rebels in Libya were not peaceful protesters. They took up arms against their government and have killed their own leader and two top aids. Funding that rebellion is not cost effective.

Back to the US debt. The War in Afghanistan is more of a grey area since we were told they were responsible for 9/11. Even though Bin Laden was found in Pakistan not Afghanistan and even though Unicol was wining and dining the Taliban prior to 9/11 trying to win the contract for the oil pipeline in Afghanistan. The US troops in Afghanistan, aside from cultivating and harvesting opium are also defending the oil pipeline now that the Taliban's decision to give the contract to Bridas has been reversed.

So we'll give them the benefit of doubt and we won't include the money spent on the invasion of Afghanistan as being directly related to fraud. But we will include the money spent on the Invasion of Iraq as contributing to the fraud debt as well as the $2.3 trillion Donald Rumsfeld claimed was missing before 9/11. I will however say privatizing the military is dangerous.

Now let's look at the money spent on the bank bail out. The Greek financial crisis was created by investment fraud. Just as the US and the British Bank bail outs were. The pattern of defrauding a bank then bailing out out with tax dollars has been tried before. It is a scam. BCCI was a scam tied to money laundering and arms smuggling. Bailing that out with tax dollars is wrong.

OK so how much did the US bank bail out cost? $700 billion. So Iraq, the missing $2.3 trillion and the bank bail out cost $6 trillion. That is a large portion of the 13 trillion national debt that has everyone so concerned. Some claim the Wall Street bailout is much larger. My point is, stealing pensions and closing schools and hospitals to pay for white collar crime is wrong. Controlling that debt by reconsidering the mission in Libya and safeguarding ourselves from pump and dump investment fraud is crucial for our own sovereignty.

Once again Michael Moore points out the obvious.

Greek Fraud Bailout

With all the news of the financial crisis Greece I think it's important to look at the investment fraud that created the crisis. Jochen Zeitz, the outgoing chief executive of Puma, claimed: "This is about systematic evasion and embezzlement." What was public money is now, mysteriously, become very private money.

The former manager of a well known and reliable insurance company in Rhodes, convinced Rhodian investrors with substantial financial standing, to redeem their mutual fund units and reinvest in virtual and non-existent securities funds, which he had invented. Greek "Madoffs" are springing up like mushrooms.

Money laundering in Greece is a problem for all of Europe. Even in the US, Chael Sonnen, the UFC middleweight currently serving a suspension for performance-enhancing drugs, has pleaded guilty to money laundering related to mortgage fraud.

"This office will continue to aggressively prosecute real estate professionals who committed the mortgage fraud that contributed to this country's economic downturn and wreaked havoc on our community's housing market," US Attorney Dwight Holton said in a statement. "We entrusted these professionals to honestly broker real estate transactions and instead, they defrauded lending institutions throughout the country and left financial ruin in their wake."

Bailouts are preceded with money laundering and investment fraud that pumps the market up then sucks it dry. Protecting against investment fraud is protecting our sovereignty.

The regulation of Canadian Banks

I saw an interesting video clip from an annalist explaining why he thought the Canadian Banks escaped the huge collapse that banks in the US and England faced. He attributed it to luck and government regulation.

Most bankers cry out for deregulation. Yet as we have seen, deregulation opens the door for fraud. The less regulated, the more fraud. Let's face it, every bank and stock market want to launder drug money. Yet we have seen that financial institutions that launder drug money are also involved in huge investment frauds that eventually result in the bank's demise.

Unless of course the bank can convince taxpayers to bail it out so it can then continue to make more and more money from investment fraud and laundering drug money. The annalist in the video clip talked about Basil II. Canada adapted those regulations early which helped them while the US delayed those regulations which hurt it.

Now, I have no idea what Basil II is, other than the fact that Basil is not only a herb for seasoning but it is also a city in Switzerland where the accord was created. I am somewhat concerned about an international banking conglomeration with absolutely no public accountability to any government whatsoever.

It's not just risky loans. It's investment fraud and laundering drug money. BCCI was a huge bank collapse which was the direct result of these two factors. One article claims According to Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia, BCCI was transformed by the head of Saudi intelligence into the “biggest clandestine money network in history”.

Registered in Luxembourg, at its peak, it operated in 78 countries, including Barbados and Jamaica, and had assets in excess of US$20 billion, making it the seventh largest private bank in the world by assets. BCCI’s rapid growth, the encyclopedia said, alarmed the financial community, as well as regulators. Their rapid growth resulted in a rapid collapse.

In this claim we see a third factor emerge, "intelligence." Along with drugs and fraud we see the involvement of "intelligence" agencies. It wasn't just Saudi intelligence. The Company was directly involved with BCCI as well as in the Texas banks collapse. BCCI collapsed in 1991 costing taxpayers millions.

The trial run for the bailout fraud was in Texas. MCorp collapsed in 1989 costing taxpayers $2 billion. Neb Bush's Silverado's collapse from JNB Explorations cost taxpayers $1.3 billion. Once again, these collapses weren't the result of risky loans to people before a market crash. The real reason behind these bank collapses was investment fraud. MCorp and Silverado was directly related to the Bush Family fraud of fake oil wells.

The three largest banks in Texas that fell in the S&L crisis were also involved in the CIA's Iran Contra just like BCCI was. The three banks were Texas American Bancshares, then chaired by Bobby Corson, Allied Bancshares of Texas, then chaired by the infamous Walter Mischer, and thirdly, MCorp.

Mischer and Corson were later investigated by various Congressional committees as to the nature of unrepaid Iran-Contra loans. By 1989, it was determined that the CIA had borrowed for illegal, covert operations some $350 million from these three intuitions. It also failed to repay that amount. These banks were involved principally in fraudulent Iran-Contra related profiteering - realm estate loans, oil and gas ventures, illegal securities transactions, ect.

This was all made possible because of The Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980 (DIDMCA) which had phased out a number of restrictions on banks' financial practices. Then the Garn–St. Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982 (Garn–St. Germain), further deregulated banks as well as deregulating savings and loans. First they deregulated the banks, then they defrauded the banks and bailed them out with tax dollars. That is the double scam.

In return the banks benefited too. Removing restrictions on interest charges Canadian mortgage interest rates increased from a low of 10.31% in August of 1978 to a high of 21.46% in September of 1981 which doubled a family’s monthly mortgage payments and caused many foreclosures in the /80's. Privatization and deregulation to circumvent public accountability is not a good thing.

One article claims Canada’s banks and its financial regulatory system have emerged from this crisis as a model for the world to follow. Why would we change our system and deregulate it so we can be susceptible to the same problems that have reoccurred in England and the US?

Sakwinder Narwal and the Return of the Vancouver Pump and Dump

Here's an interesting article. The Vancouver Sun reported that U.S. securities regulators have charged controversial Vancouver promoter Sakwinder Narwal with defrauding investors in an alleged pump and dump stock scheme.

The Securities and Exchange Commission charged three principals of Del Mar Corporate Communications, LLC, a San Diego-based investor relations company, and a Canadian citizen for committing fraud while promoting a penny stock company headquartered in British Columbia, Canada.

I'm confused. This article is from February 17 2011. There is no penny stock exchange in Vancouver. Does that mean it's a fake company based in Vancouver traded on another exchange?

This is even tied to a drive by shooting in Shaughnessy on July 7 2007. Johnston and Marshall purchased the home (Where the drive by occurred) in May 2006 for $4,050,000, land title records show. Marshall then transferred his interest in the house to Johnston for a dollar in January 2007.

In early 2004, the RCMP's Integrated Market Enforcement Team raided the Vancouver offices of Silver Star Energy Ltd., alleging the company was involved in a "pump and dump" stock fraud. Five people were named in the search warrant, including Marshall, who had been a director of 1048136 Alberta Ltd., which sold properties to Silver Star.

At the time, Silver Star's largest share holder was Marshall's business partner Sakwinder Narwal, while Johnston held the second largest number of Silver Star shares. Despite the high-profile criminal probe, no charges were ever laid and police now confirm the file has been closed.

Narwal, who has been linked to several other U.S. penny stocks, is a close relative of convicted kidnapper Jethinder Singh (Roman) Narwal, who is now serving a 15-year sentence. At the time of his 2006 conviction, Roman owned stocks in three other companies founded by Sak Narwal.

Roman's late father Avtar Singh Narwal was identified at the Air India trial as a suspect in the 1985 Air India bombing. Investment fraud, drive by shootings, kidnapping and the Air India bombing. WTF.

Adam Keller and the Great White Capital Fraud

Well here's another case of investment fraud. This one involving a local company based on paper out of West Vancouver. David Baines from the Vancouver Sun reports that a B.C. man named Adam Keller found by the B.C. Securities Commission to have defrauded investors of more than $500,000 in a non-existent foreign exchange trading scheme has been banned from the B.C. securities market for life.

It is highly unlikely Keller will repay any of the money. He did not attend the hearing and his whereabouts are not known. However, he may still have a day of reckoning. The RCMP Commercial Crime Section is investigating with a view to laying criminal charges against him. This is yet another example of how Canada is soft on white collar crime.

At the time, Keller was the sole director and signing authority for Great White Capital Corp., a company headquartered in West Vancouver. The panel found that Keller perpetrated a fraud when he lied to investors, provided them with false account summaries, and failed to protect, secure, or return investors’ funds as promised. Additionally, Keller did not invest the funds solicited from investors, but instead used the funds for personal purposes.

Great White Capital Corp was registered in Alberta on June 23, 2009, and extra-provincially registered in British Columbia on June 26, 2009. Keller was a resident of British Columbia during the relevant period. He is the sole director of GWC, the Head Office of which is listed as being in West Vancouver, British Columbia.

Keller advised the Investors that their investments were making profits as a result of his trading on the foreign exchange market. Further, throughout 2009 and 2010 the Respondents provided individual account summaries to the Investors that purported to show that their investments were earning profits of approximately 7 to 27% per month. The account summaries were false, because the Respondents did not make the purported investments and no profits existed.

I'm not even sure what the B.C. securities market is. I know Vancouver lost it's Stock Exchange after W-5 did that news report about all the fraud and fake paper stocks. David Baines from the Vancouver Sun seems to have a good understand of what it is and how to regulate the fraud that currently exists in it.

My point is that investment fraud is a serious crime that affects all of us. This is what destabilizes markets. This is how pensions are lost and banks collapse. The bailouts of which cost taxpayers billions which the government tries to recoup by stealing out pensions. This perpetual con needs to be addressed and stopped. All I know is investment 101 declares diversification. Don't invest all your money in one high risk stock and avoid get rich quick scams like the plague.

Conrad Black is Back in the news

Well, the cat came back. Conrad Black is back in the news. This time he's going back to prison. There were two aspects of Conrad Black's fraud. One obviously was investment fraud. The other was media fraud. Conrad Black was a wealthy very right wing media tycoon who started buying up newspapers and media outlets.

We generally think that news is news and doesn't carry with it a political prejudice. One wouldn't think that a news outlet would intentionally print bad things about a political candidate they didn't like and selectively print good things about political candidates they do like. However, reality shows us that certain media outlets have certain political slants. One could argue the purpose of a political slant is to appeal to a certain type of reader and make more money. Another could argue that it is media controlled censorship and brain washing.

For example, it has been said that if you wrote an editorial in support of workers or organized labour when Conrad Black owned the paper, you would be fired. After all the owner of the paper can fire whoever they want for whatever reason they want.

Fox News is obviously biased. With all the money the Harper and Campbell governments are spending on dishonest adverting for the HST, we can clearly see why the Harper government would want to create his own Fox News North and have a profit making media outlet where he can get all the free advertising and brainwashing he wants. It would save him a ton on advertising.

Yet the criminal charges arise from the fact that Media tycoon Conrad Black and his allies looted the company he created to manage a global publishing empire of more than 400 million dollars since 1997, a report prepared for US court and regulators showed. The report also blamed high-profile members of the company's board of directors for rubber-stamping Black's efforts and failing to question dubious payments being made.

"Not once or twice, but on dozens of occasions Hollinger was victimized by its controlling shareholders as they transferred to themselves and their affiliates more than 400 million dollars in the last seven years. The aggregate cash taken by Hollingers former CEO Conrad M. Black and its former COO F. David Radler and their associates represented 95.2 percent of Hollinger's entire adjusted net income during 1997-2003."

The report went on to say that Hollinger went from being an expanding business -- which at the time controlled Britain's Daily Telegraph as well as the Jerusalem Post and Chicago Sun-Times -- "to becoming a company whose sole preoccupation was generating current cash for the controlling shareholders, with no concern for building future enterprise value or wealth for all shareholders."

We all know Conrad Black was imprisoned for embezzling money from the company but the report claims Hollinger was victimized by its controlling shareholders as they transferred to themselves and their affiliates more than 400 million dollars in the last seven years. Two things come to mind. This sounds an awful lot like the National Heritage scam. Controlling shareholders milked the company for themselves and their affiliates. The flaming question is, who were Hollinger's controlling shareholders and affiliates that befitted from the fraud other than lord cat in the hat.

Locally we know that David Radler, the former publisher of the Vancouver Sun and Province newspapers, had been granted full parole December 2008. He served just under 2 1/2 years for fraud.

Ralder took a plea bargain. He plead guilty to mail fraud and agreed to testify against Conrad Black. He was originally sentenced to 6 1/2 years but was transferred to a Canadian prison and released early. I'm not sure how that math worked out. Statutory release is after two thirds of your sentence has been served. Two thirds of 6 1/2 years is 4 1/3 years not 2 1/2.

Richard Perle is the former co-chairman and director of Hollinger, Inc. Perle is an American political advisor and lobbyist who worked for the Reagan administration as an assistant Secretary of Defense and worked on the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee from 1987 to 2004. He was Chairman of the Board from 2001 to 2003 under the Bush Administration. Richard Perle was blasted for his role in the Hollinger Scandal.

James R. Thompson is a Commissioner on the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. The former Republican governor of Illinois has served as a director of Hollinger since 1994. Even Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon's secretary of state was on the Hollinger board of directors. Kissinger escaped both the Watergate and the Hollinger scandals unscathed.



Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of Conrad Black. I just want to point out what he did wasn't nearly as bad as the repeated pattern the Bush family fraud did on a regular basis. In CONrad's case, he and his associates spent 95.2 percent of Hollinger's entire adjusted net income during 1997-2003.

The cartoon does represent one argument. CONrad Black created the company and it was his company to do with the profits what he wanted. Take for example if someone started a small business. Say they were building houses. If they owned the company they could spend the profits however they wanted.

The problem arises when it's a publicly traded company and you aren't the sole proprietor. You're not the only owner. Taking all the profits from the company without telling the other owners and shareholders investing in the company is considered theft. Thus CONrad's incarceration.

However, what the Bush family did on a repeated basis was way worse. According to Al Martin, Neb Bush would get him to set up a fake company. They would then commit fraud by overstating the company's value to trick investors and qualify for bank loans. Real Estate or fake Oil Companies were the most popular.

The repeated Bush Family fraud wasn't just a matter of spending the profits of a legitimate company. It involved creating a fake company, ripping off investors and ripping off banks by purposely defaulting on bank loans. Now, I will admit, not all of the Bush Fraud investors were innocent victims. Some knew the oil company was fake and they knew it was going to go bankrupt. They still invested in the venture because they believed in the cause.

They were promised 50% of their investment to be returned in dividends knowing they could write off the other 50% of their investment from their taxes and come out whole after the fact. Plus an autographed picture of George bush and a warm fuzzy feeling you were helping fight Communism in Nicaragua. By committing tax fraud but after all, in their mind the government should have been funding the contras in the first place.

So, my point is simple. What CONrad Black did was wrong and illegal. Yet it was nothing compared to the myriad of investment fraud the Bush family were involved with. CONrad spent the company's profits while the Bush crime family made fake companies, ripped off investors and knowingly defaulted on bank loans creating multiple bank crisis which had to be bailed out at the tax payers expense. All in the name of GREED. Sure the contras got a few pennies for their cause but the amount and extent of the investment fraud as well as the drug and arms dealing made many in that crime family rich.

Inviting George Bush to come to Canada to speak on the economy is absurd. He'll likely use the opportunity to set up another ponzi scheme like Bre X.

BCCI Banking Scandal

One of the more mysterious aspects of the Inslaw murders was the CIA's involvement in the BCCI Banking scandal. BCCI was known as the Bank of crooks and criminals international since it was heavily involved in laundering drug money.

I don't want to focus on Pakistan's nuclear industry. We know Canada was deeply involved in that. I want to focus on the scandalous nature of the BCCI and how it was tied to the CIA. Illegal arms, laundering drug money as well as fraud all sound frighteningly familiar to the allegations found in Al Martin's book The Conspirators.

Time Magazine reported that Sheik Kamal Adham and Sheik Khalid bin Mahfouz, head of the largest commercial bank in Saudi Arabia, were involved with BCCI scandal. I don't even have to say the name of the U.S. crime family involved with oil fraud in Texas that was tied to Saudi Arabia.

In fact Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi was tied to BCCI and had the backing of Saudi and the U.S. in Iran Contra. Which of course involved Oliver North through the front company Lake Resources.

Albert Hakim pleaded guilty November 21, 1989, to a misdemeanor of supplementing the salary of Oliver L. North. Lake Resources Inc., in which Hakim was the principal shareholder. He also pleaded guilty to a corporate felony of theft of government property in diverting Iran arms sales proceeds to the Nicaraguan contras and other activities. Hakim was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell on February 1, 1990, to two years probation and a $5,000 fine; Lake Resources was ordered dissolved.

Iran Contra didn't just involve Iran. It involved arms and drugs going in and out of Nicaragua. Oliver North was in charge of everything that went in and out of Nicaragua at the time. Under Richard Secord's direction of course. Lake Resources was just one of many shell companies tied to a complex maze of investment fraud. The day before 9/11 Donald Rumsfeld stated the Pentagon could not account for $2.3 trillion. Privatizing the military and removing what little public accountability there is, is not the answer, The answer is to increase public accountability.

The International Credit and Investment Corporation of Grand Caymans was termed BCCI’s “bank-within-a-bank” in the Kerry Committee report. Thus, James Bath’s Skyways Aircraft Leasing is an enterprise related to Mahfouz’s BCCI via “IC Inc.” The company was found by investigators to be at the very centre of a chart found in Oliver North’s White House safe, showing the banking network of the Iran-Contra operation.

The Double Scam and the Texas Bank Robbery

We've heard of double dipping but a double scam is something rather new. I'm not talking about a card trick. I'm talking about a stock swindle. We've talked about the Bush family's involvement with oil fraud.

Donors would invest in the fake oil field. They would be paid half their investment in the limited partnerships before they became insolvent. They got to write off the other half of their investment on a 2:1 leverage basis, which was perfectly legal under the lax laws at the time. The net effect was that they came out whole on an after tax basis.

That scam defrauded the American people out of tax revenue because the investors wrote off the loss in their fake company which meant a reduction in tax revenue to the government which had to be recovered from the average citizen.

The double scam is the same thing twice over. Al Martin used the following example: "I will use MCorp as an example, wherein a corporate artifice could be formed by Jeb Bush, let's say. Money could be borrowed from MCorp. The money would then be used to short (sell short, in other words) MCorp's stock. When the stock plummeted, the shares would be bought back at a large profit, and the original load itself would be defaulted on through the marginal, corporate entity that originally borrowed it, which most likely existed nowhere except in an attorney's file cabinet." (The Conspirators page 100)

I'm not sure I understand the selling short thing but I do understand defaulting on a bank loan through a fake corporation. BTW "In March 1989, when MCorp failed, is was the 36th largest banking entity in the United States. As the second largest banking entity in Texas, MCorp consisted of 25 banks, 86 banking offices, and 1 trust company, all located in Texas. The company had assets of $18 billion, and it's common stock was listed on the New York Stock Exchange M. MCorp had a reputation as one of the most progressive banking entities, in terms of both technology and personnel."

"MCorp suffered two straight years of quarterly operating losses beginning with the fourth quarter of 1986. The losses stemmed primarily from an increasing amount of nonperforming assets and loan charge-offs. The oil industry in Texas and the Southwest had collapsed."

They lost their money due to scams. It wasn't that the oil market dried up, It was the oil fraud that milked them dry. The test run for the big one was in 1989 when the government dished out $2 billion for MCorp alone.

Al Martin claims that there were three major Texas lending institutions which were very prominent in the Iran-Contra fraud and were, in fact, taken down by the fraud.These were Texas American Bancshares, then chaired by Bobby Corson, Allied Bancshares of Texas, then chaired by the infamous Walter Mischer, and thirdly, MCorp. (page 99)

These were the three largest savings and loans and/or chimerical banks in Texas in the mid-1980's. The combined losses in these institutions totaled some $5 billion. By 1988-8, these banks were, in fact, insolvent.

Mischer and Corson were later investigated by various Congressional committees as to the nature of unrepaid Iran-Contra loans. In some cases, these were some of the few groups of institutions where the CIA was directly involved.

In fact, by 1989, it was determined that the CIA had borrowed for illegal, covert operations some $350 million from these three intuitions. It also failed to repay that amount. These banks were involved principally in fraudulent Iran-Contra related profiteering - realm estate loans, oil and gas ventures, illegal securities transactions, ect.

Al Martin gives another specific example of the double fraud. One that he claims he himself did under the direction of Jeb Bush.

"What I did (as a matter of fact, Jeb Bush introduced me to the loan with certain provisios about where parts of the proceeds were to go later on ) is that I formed a separate shell known as Mar-Tech Industries. I borrowed $85,000 from MCorp through Dean Witter. Through the account that Mar-Tech controlled at Dean Witter, I was able to short 10,000 shares of MCorp preferred at varying prices between $8 and $8.50."

"Within three or four months, M-Corp preferred shares had fallen in value to $3. I then covered my 10,000m shares between $3 and $3.50 a share making approximately $50,000 profit. I then proceeded to dissolve Mar-Tech and defaulted on the original $85,000 loan, after having made two interest payments."

"I now has $135,000 in total profits, as you loosely describe $85,000 illicitly obtained from a fraudulent bank loan, or a bank loan that I obtained under fraudulent circumstances, plus $50,000 garnered through the short sale of said stock, essentially using the bank's own money to short the stock and then defaulting on the loan. Others did this in much larger quantity than I ever did." (page 101)

I'm not reposting this information to teach people how to scam the banks. I'm reposting it so the banks will see how they were scammed and that the Bush family were directly involved in all this which makes George Bush's visit to Surrey very problematic indeed. We do not want him to defraud our banks like he did in Texas.

Not that stock scams are anything new to Vancouver. In fact that is the reason we don't have a stock market any more. 60 Minutes did a special on the numerous fake companies that would rise on hype then crash when the directors took off to Florida for the summer only to come back in 6 months to do it all over again. This kind of investment fraud destabilizes the market, our economy and destroys hard earned pensions which is absolutely not acceptable.

Bailing out the banks after they have been defrauded is another example of the double scam. First they steal from the bank, then they steal from the tax payers. These are the real criminals. They are the real enemies of the state.



It appears they did the same thing in Denver. Neil Bush was on the Board of Directors for Silvderado Savings and Loan. That collapse cost tax payers $1 billion. Another report claims it was more like $1.4 trillion. Federal regulators accused Bush of conflict of interest. He was never charged criminally but he was sued. They settled out of court for $26.5 million and had a republican fundraiser to help Neil cover his portion of the costs.

Get this, the S&L crash was a result of puring money into Neil oil fraud called JNB Exploration. Over a period of five years JNB drilled over 25 wells in four States and didn't find a drop of oil. Neil started the company with two former coworkers who made Neil president. That's when Neil became a director of Silverado Savings and Loan and approved loans over a million dollars for his two partners. Somewhat conflicted indeed. Neil Bush helped cause Silverado to crash and get a huge bail out while he kept getting huge salary increases along the way.

Don't forger George Bush's oil fraud culminated in Harkern Energy. In 1990 George Bush sold of a large block of shares in that company right before the company reported a larger than expected loss for the previous quarter which trigger a substantial drop in the value of the stock. Bush was accused of insider trading.

Before Harken Energy the company was called Arbusto Energy and defrauded the bin Laden Family just like Sarkozy defrauded Gaddafi. It was revealed that Jim Bath made a $50,000 investment in Arbusto on behalf of Salem bin Ladden, Osama's brother who later died in an ultralight accident in Texas. However, Bill White claims the court documents revealed that the $25,000 dollar investment in 1979 and the $25,000 investment in 1980 was just Bath's commission and that the Saudis had actually invested over a million dollars.

Bush later got $25 million from Osama's brother in law for another oil company. White claims the Saudis would give brief cases of cash to the lawyers who would in turn put the money in Bush Sr.'s campaign fund. They got around the law banning foreign political contributions by giving the money to lawyers which was then protected by lawyer client privilege. Well kinda.

Don't forget that all these banking scams were made possiible because the banks were deregulated. The Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980 (DIDMCA) had phased out a number of restrictions on banks' financial practices, broadened their lending powers, and raised the deposit insurance limit from $40,000 to $100,000 (raising the problem of moral hazard). Banks rushed into real estate lending, speculative lending, and other ventures.

In July 1982, Congress enacted the Garn–St. Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982 (Garn–St. Germain), which further deregulated banks as well as deregulating savings and loans. First they deregulated the banks, then they defrauded the banks and bailed them out with tax dollars. That is a double scam alright.

Yet the banks benefitted too. Removing restrictions on interest charges Canadian mortgage interest rates increased from a low of 10.31% in August of 1978 to a high of 21.46% in September of 1981 which doubled a family’s monthly mortgage payments and caused many foreclosures. Mortgage rates have since subsided but credit card rates haven’t despite such a drastic drop in the prime lending rate.

Investment Fraud

Before I return to my primary focus which is the Hells Angels violent control of the drug trade in East Van, Prince George and in Surrey, I'm going to expand slightly on the matters of investment fraud and illegal arms deals just because I can.

I think investment fraud is significant because it affects so many people. People lose their life savings. Destabilizing the market destroys pensions which are sacred. When people work hard all their life and save money for their pension only to find that money worthless and stolen when they retire then that is a heinous crime.

Not only that but the fraudulent bail outs with tax dollars these scams feed off of destabilize entire countries and prevent a country's ability to provide social programs like medical coverage for all. Good intentions are robbed by bad people who claim to be good with money while they scam you out of your retirement savings. This needs to be addressed.

Two preventions I would cite off the top of my head are beware of the get rich quick scheme. Sound financial management involves regular savings over and extended period of time. The other obvious fact is diversification. Don't put all your money especially your entire retirement savings all in one high risk investment. It's just not worth it. The first rule of sound investment strategy is diversification. You don't invest all your money in one area in case that area drops. Often large drops in the market are temporary and recover. Diversification helps people overcome being trapped by market fluctuations.

National Heritage Life Insurance

When we hear the name George Bush we pull out the shoe cannon and shout war criminal. Since he vetoed the bill to stop torture at Guantanamo bay he is even more of a war criminal than the Serb who just had his Canadian citizenship revoked for allegations of torture.

Yet everyone knows Bush is a war criminal. Not everyone knows about his extensive involvement with investment fraud. We talked about his involvement with Bre X and his family's involvement with Oil fraud. National Heritage Life Insurance is yet another.

National Heritage Life Insurance was featured on the TV series American Greed. They claimed "The owners of the Orlando, Fl based company are funneling company money into their own pockets. But they need help and Sholam Weiss is just the man to provide assistance. Together they find new ways to bilk the company. When all is said and done, they take $450 million from National Heritage."

"Federal authorities said the fraud began in the early 1990s, when a group of businessmen began looting the company. Weiss took control in 1993, and with several confederates bought up worthless stocks and mortgages. The money vanished or ended up in accounts controlled by Weiss." (and a "group of businessmen" who were not convicted)

According to former Navy Intelligence officer Al Martin, "National Heritage Life Insurance Company was part and parcel of Heritage Financial Group, Heritage Credit Group, Heritage Securities Group, Heritage Banking Group. It was more than just an insurance company. Heritage was a consolidated financial group involving securities, banking and insurance." (page 345 The Conspirators)

Al Martina claims that "One of the principals of the company was John Gotti. Among the directors was George Sr., George Jr.,Jeb, Neil ect. These were the directors of the holding company called Heritage Group International."

George Bush in business with John Gotti. Imagine that. Al Martin claims their purchase of the company began with fraud. He claims they wrote a cheque for $4 million from an empty account. As soon as Heritage transferred all it's files and assets, the new partnership then transfers $4 million from Heritage Life's reserve capital into their account to cover the $ 4 million cheque they had already written. (page 344)

He then claims they turned Heritage into a fraud centre where they would buy busted out HUD properties for $500,000, then list their value on Heritage books as $5 million. Martin claims they did this repeatedly. (page 344)

Martin claims "Andrew Cuomo, through his father Mario's influence, was hired on as a consultant to the corporation. He was also a member of the Board of Trustees of Heritage Life at $50,000 per year. When Andrew became Director of HUD, Andrew helped cover up Heritage's scams vis-a-vis HUD. Heritage in turn not only buys up HUD property, but it also becomes its own insurer of HUD property. For example, it would claim that the insurance premium on XYZ property was $1 million a year, when in fact the insurance was only $100,000 a year."

Martin thought they'd pick Andrew Cuomo to be the scam's scapegoat. Not so. Instead, they chose Sholam Weiss to be the scapegoat and made Andrew Cuomo governor of New York. After he was AG and investigate Life Insurance fraud of course. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Catherine Austin Fitts claimed that under Andrew Cuomo's leadership "HUD was Being Run as a Criminal Enterprise." (reposted thanks to Mike Rupert)

In fact, the Coumotarp blog refers to Andrew Cuomo's Predatory Heart Of Darkness and claims: "As Secretary of HUD, Andrew Cuomo reversed the policy of selling defaulted mortgages so that families could keep their homes. Instead, he chose to foreclose on mortgages, which meant that families lost their homes and insiders cleaned up on fire-sale priced properties. The US Treasury also lost billions." This is one of the guys that caused the bank crisis in the US and robbed the taxpayers out of that insane bailout.

George Bush coming to Surrey???

George Bush is coming to Surrey? You have got to be kidding. George Bush vetoed the bill to stop torture at Guantanamo Bay. That does make him a war criminal. Having George Bush speak on the economy is insane. He added trillions to the debt.

He kept going back and asking congress for more and more money for the unlawful invasion of Iraq based on a lie. A large portion of the tax dollars went to Dick Cheney who was involved with Haliburton that directly profited from the invasion of Iraq.

Former Navy intelligence officer Al Martin talked about the Bush family's extensive involvement with investment fraud in his book The Conspirators. George Bush was tied to Bre X the largest investment fraud in Canadian History. Keep Surrey Safe. Keep George Bush out!

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Looks like it's on despite local concerns. The Surrey Regional Economic Summit will host Bill Clinton and George Bush.

7:30am – 2:00pm, Thursday, October 20, 2011
Sheraton Vancouver Guildford Hotel
15269 104th Avenue, Surrey, BC, Canada

Maybe Mr. Bill can tell us how he covered up for his pal George W in Mena Arkansas when he was governor of Arkansas by protecting the crooked corner Fahmy Malak who tampered with evidence and ruled murders suicides.

Maybe George W. Fraud can tell us all about how he scammed so many people with oil fraud and bank fraud. Maybe he'd even be kind enough to tell us how much money he made off Bre-X in Calgary.

Donald Trump

Aside from being a con artist and a complete whack job, the amount of income tax Donald Trump pays is absolutely criminal. In 1990, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston studied the Trump accounts and claimed that while Trump claimed to be worth $1.4bn, he actually owed $600m more than he owned and you and I were worth more than him. His current wealth is not known, but he claims he is worth more than $2.7bn.

Johnston studied four of Trump’s recent tax returns, and found he legally paid no taxes in two of them. In America today, a janitor can pay more income tax than Donald Trump – and the Republicans regard that not as a source of shame, but of pride. This is the problem.

I am the first one to admit too much corporate tax is not a good thing, but no tax for the exceedingly wealthy is a crime. That's all there is to it. What ever happened to those roll up your sleeves and get to work slogans like ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. Paying a decent tax is a civic duty. Render unto Caesar and what not. Tax evasion is a serious crime. Creating legal loop holes for the wealthy to evade taxes all together is worse.

Oh yeah, Donald Trump was a Vietnam war draft dodger just like George W Bush was.

Marc Dreier

Speaking of corporate fraud and white collar crime, let's take a look at Marc Dreier. The TV series American Greed ran a segment about him the other night.

Crack dealers are irritating because the resulting property crime addicts commit to pay for the drug is bothersome. Yet that is nothing compared to the large scale fraud of white collar crime which not only affects millions of dollars, it also can destroy entire pensions in the process. That is why it's so serious.

Marc Dreier was a fraudster who made a fake bond for $20 million and sold it to a hedge fund. In fact he did it several times totalling $700 million in fraud. On one occasion the hedge fund was getting suspicious and wanted to meet with the CEO of the real company one of his fake bonds were made for. So he gets a friend to pretend to be the CEO and hold a meeting with the hedge fund in a board room in the company's New York office.

He tried the same thing himself in Ontario with the Ontario Teachers Pension fund. That time he impersonated the CEO himself. The buyer got suspicious and asked the receptionist if the person he was just with was really who he claimed to be. When the receptionist said no the police and the Feds were called in to investigate.

Like I said, this kind of large scale corporate fraud not only rips off millions it also destroys pensions which is very serious indeed. That drives us to examine some of the other ongoing corporate fraud out there.