Blog posts with "accounting"

Congratulations to our friends at Kohn, Kohn and Colapinto for securing the largest whistleblower award to an individual in history. On September 11, 2012, the National Whistleblowers Center announced the IRS award of $104,000,000 to Bradley Birkenfeld – the whistleblower who exposed a massive tax evasion scheme involving Swiss bank accounts. At the recorded press conference, Attorney Stephen M. Kohn declared: Today, the IRS sent 104 million messages to whistleblowers around the world...

  A recent article from Reuters illuminated an interesting dilemma that the IRS is currently facing in reference to what may be the largest example of tax fraud in US history. The alleged fraud involves the improper handling of the transfer of mortgages into and out of a legal entity known as a Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduit (REMIC), investments which totaled $3 billion in 2010 alone. The IRS allows for special tax treatment of REMICs, exempting the securities created by the REMIC f...

  In an Orlando Sentinel article by Susan Jacobson entitled Elderly who trusted high- living couple now face nightmares, former clients spoke out about Ross and Linda Littlefield, who were “charged with 10 counts of fraudulently using the Lentzes' credit cards, one count of fraudulently using their personal-identification information and one count of engaging in a scheme to defraud for at least $20,000 but less than $50,000.” Following are excerpts from the article: When her husband's Al...

On June 24, 2011, the law office of Campbell Law P.A. filed a lawsuit for civil damages in the Circuit Court of Osceola County, Florida against disbarred-attorney Linda Vasquez Littlefield based on allegations that she and her former husband, Ross Littlefield, operated a criminal enterprise that defrauded elderly clients out of their life savings. Campbell Law brought this suit on behalf of individuals suffering from Alzheimer’s and dementia, as well as their representatives, who claim the ...

Shahin Kashanchi was arrested a couple of days ago on charges of scheming with his brother-in-law Hassan Nemazee to defraud Citibank and HSBC of $290 million. Nemazee was arrested on August 25, 2009 and indicted for using fraudulent documents to secure loans from the victim banks, and executing a ponzi scheme against them by paying partial proceeds of the loans from one bank to the debts owed to the other and likewise.   Many of the fraudulent documents used in Nemazee's scheme were allegedl...

A new class of hackers has emerged: the Ponzi Hacker. Well maybe hackers perpetrating frauds isn't new, but assisting a billionaire to fool the Securities and Exchange Commission through clever coding as part of a much larger ponzi scheme is, well, novel. Yes, you guessed it, we're talking about good old Bernie Madoff. Here is a quote from the Register: "A federal grand jury has indicted two computer programmers on fraud and conspiracy charges for developing programs used by Bernard Madoff ...

  Lehman Brothers chapter 11 examiner's report has become available. Anton R. Valukas, chairman of the law firm Jenner & Block, performed the examination, and points the finger squarely at Lehman for culpability in the fall of the financial giant. Here are some quotes from the L.A. Times regarding the recent report:  "The uncompromising report should put to rest the self-serving claims by Lehman’s ex-Chairman Richard S. Fuld that the firm was destroyed by rumors, short selling, stoc...

The Miami Herald just ran a story about the questionable use of a fund intended to support environmentally green activities that the Division Chief used for all manner of other things including sun glasses and GPS units. "Among Miami-Dade police, it was known simply as 'Vecin's trust fund.' That fund, earmarked to fight environmental crime with a $5 million infusion of public money over the past decade, is the focus of widening investigations into whether the bounty evolved into an unchecked...

  Arthur Nadel, the man described as "Mini-Madoff," will likely plead guilty to at least some of the charges leveled against him, securities, wire, and mail fraud, sometime later today in a Manhattan Federal court. Operating out of Sarasota, FL, Nadel conned investors out of $360 million in a ponzi scheme similar to Madoff's. Nadel potentially faces decades in prison.    

Won Sok Lee, 39, an attorney, formerly of Riviera Beach (Singer Island), Florida, and Irvine, California, plead guilty yesterday afternoon to one count of wire fraud in violation of Title 18 U.S.C. §1343 and one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud in violation of Title 18 U.S.C. §371. Lee is set to be sentenced on December 11, 2009 and faces a statutory maximum of 25 years in prison, a $500,000 fine, and restitution.   According to the FBI, Lee, along with John Kim and Yung ...