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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: paunch13 who wrote (85495)	5/18/2002 10:12:32 PM
From: Richnorth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116836

What cockeyed logic is that? Surely with same-ness and everyone singing a thousand and one hossanas and halleluias at the same time everytime, things would be pretty dull, eh? Seems to me what you want is a mutual admiration society or a self-congratulating society. As far as I am aware, none has existed or will ever exist on this Earth plane except in the minds of mystics, dreamers and idealists. Ever wonder so many confrontation-type of TV programs are aired these days? Simply because folks love them!!! I know of a amateur cartoonist whose cartoons were rejected by a newspaper editor even though the cartoons were excellent. The editor recommended that the cartoonist inject an element of confrontation into the cartoons in order to make them acceptable for publication.

To: paunch13 who wrote (85495)	5/19/2002 11:10:49 AM
From: long-gone	Respond to of 116836

But I've got to wonder why the author doesn't say the metal was GOLD it has been admitted in other articles? Why even refer to *tin*? Scam of banks baffles investigators Officials: Brokerage may have started as legitimate firm By Scott Bernard Nelson, Globe Staff, 5/16/2002 nvestigators yesterday were still trying to piece together how four New Jersey men allegedly conned some of the nation's most experienced bankers out of as much as $1 billion in a metals-trading scam that spread across several continents. Coming just months after a currency trader admitted hiding $691 million worth of trading losses from Allied Irish Banks and a rogue broker was charged with bilking $125 million from his Lehman Brothers clients, the financial world's latest scandal left industry veterans again scratching their heads. Veteran bankers expressed surprise that institutions the size and sophistication of FleetBoston Financial Corp., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., and PNC Financial Services Group would loan hundreds of millions of dollars without doing enough due diligence to catch the fraud earlier. ''At a fundamental level, something went completely wrong,'' said Martin Leinweber, managing director of the Center for Enterprise Risk Management and Assurance Services at Georgia State University. ''Eventually with every one of these business scandals, it comes out that there is some lapse, some failure of the control system, and that has to be the case here, too.'' Authorities provided one possibility yesterday, acknowledging for the first time that the four men arrested Tuesday may have established their credit with the banks by running a legitimate metals brokerage business before turning to anything fraudulent. Eventually, according to the FBI and federal prosecutors, they recruited a wide-ranging network of people internationally who were willing to pose as customers in order to create the illusion of a thriving metals-trading company. The men allegedly used the fake customers to persuade the banks to provide lines of credit worth tens of millions of dollars, then used new loans to pay off older loans in a version of the age-old con most famously associated with Boston swindler Charles Ponzi. ''This appears to be part of a large Ponzi scheme, with banks instead of individuals as victims,'' said Marvin Smilon, a spokesman for the US attorney's office in New York City. ''But it does appear as if there were some early legitimate deals before the Ponzi started.'' Authorities arrested Narendra Kumar Rastogi, Anil Anand, Manoj Nijhawan, and Udhay Shankar at their New Jersey homes Tuesday morning, charging them with conspiracy, mail fraud, and wire fraud. The complaint filed against them in federal court identifies Rastogi as chief executive of three companies - Allied Deals Inc., Hampton Lane Inc., and SAI Commodity Inc. - and the other three as senior executives. Rastogi's brother, Virendra, is one of Britain's richest Asian businessmen, and chairman of another company mentioned in the federal complaint, London-based RBG Resources. Virendra Rastogi is ''a co-conspirator'' in the complaint but is not charged with any crimes, although questions remain about his role. A 2001 profile published by The Times of India refers to Virendra as chief executive of Allied Deals. ''We've only been intensely looking at this case for about a week now,'' Smilon said. ''We certainly don't have all the answers yet.'' If the men did in fact run a legitimate metals-trading business for a while, it would help explain how they were able to convince banks to loan them so much money later on, experts in financial fraud said yesterday. ''The most interesting question is how it all started, where the first lines of credit were opened,'' said Leinweber. ''It sounds plausible that there were real trades initially that they used to build a level of credibility. Then they just expanded from there.'' The men claimed that Allied Deals and the other companies were in the business of facilitating metals deals between buyers and sellers in different parts of the world. A company in New Delhi, for example, might have a supply of tin it wants to sell. Another firm in Seattle might need (cont) boston.com