Admit it: You’re bummed that the Bear Stearns fraud trial has ended in a flash of prosecutorial incompetence and 12 potential clients for Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin. We are, too. But fear not, friends, there’s an embarrassment of hedge fund fraud riches out there to continue to follow, and we thought we’d offer a Readers’ Digest of the (alleged) scams and scandals still making news.
Madoff: Let’s start with the mother of them all. Bernie may be moldering away in Butner with the homosexual posse, but the fallout from Ponzi scheme to end all Ponzi schemes* continues. Last week, Madoff’s storefront accountant pleaded guilty to fraud, obstruction and false filings. But the court battles aren’t over: Swiss authorities have charged the former head of Banco Santander’s fund of hedge funds arm with criminal mismanagement for overseeing its $3.5 billion in Madoff losses.
Irving Picard is still busy, too. The court-appointed receiver, who said he’s promised to pay out $534 million to Madoff’s victims, has been forced to cut his claim against Madoff feeder fund magnate Ezra Merkin by one-third to $564 million. And then there’s the aftermath of the death of Madoff buddy and Picard target Jeffry Picower.
K1 Group
The arrests and the hundreds of millions of dollars in potential losses notwithstanding, is the alleged fraud at German fund of hedge funds firm just a simple case of lost in translation? Or an accounting snafu?
Cautioning against boldness, the firm’s auditor–a professor of finance and accounting at an august German institution of higher education–wants us to remember that “until now nothing has been proven.” After all, that country’s financial authorities and courts can’t even decide if the firm can even be regulated, let alone prosecuted.
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