Bernard Madoff, the Mafia, and the Friends of Michael Milken

[KoKo]

(Oh My...haven't read anything this interesting or sinister since Mike Ruppert left the USA for Parts Unknown) :eyes:
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Bernard Madoff, the Mafia, and the Friends of Michael Milken

By Mark Mitchell, Published: February 5th, 2009 3:25 AM EST


In 2005, Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com (OSTK) and future Deep Capture investigative reporter, began a public crusade against illegal naked short selling (hedge funds and brokers creating phantom stock to manipulate stock prices down). He said, over and over, that the crime was destroying public companies and had the potential to trigger a systemic meltdown of our financial markets.

Soon after, I began to investigate a network of short sellers, journalists, and miscreants. I concluded that many of the people in this network were connected to two famous criminals – “junk bond king” Michael Milken and his associate, Ivan Boesky. I also began taking a close look at the Mafia’s involvement in naked short selling.

In my last installment (click here to read), I described some of the strange occurrences that attended this investigation. Where the story left off, I’d recently been threatened in a bookstore, and then ambushed by three thugs who told me to stay away from this story. My unwitting employer had been bribed by short sellers, Patrick had been told by a U.S. Senator that his life was in danger, and a Russian matryoshka doll had appeared on the desk of an offshore businessman.

Inside this matryoshka doll was a slip of paper marked with the letter “F”…

* * * * * * * *

Soon after receiving the matryoshka doll, the offshore businessman invited Patrick Byrne to a greasy spoon diner in Long Island. Over the previous year, the businessman had provided Patrick with some information about the naked short selling scam, and the hope was that he might have something more to say.

But that day at the diner, all he had was a message.

“I’ll make this quick,” the businessman said, with two other witnesses present. “I have a message for you from Russia. The message is, ‘We are about to kill you. We are about to kill you.’ Patrick, they are going to kill you. If you do not stop this crusade , they will kill you. Normally they’d have already hurt someone close to you as a warning, but you’re so weird, they don’t know how you’d react.”

In a later conversation with a colleague of Patrick’s the businessman said : “These things don’t happen to me anymore. I mean, I’ve been out of that world for a dozen years or more. These…there are defined signals here that lead me to believe that they have been disturbed. The only way they coulda been disturbed is if they own Rocker or if he is using them for leverage.”

Rocker. That’s David Rocker.

At the time, David Rocker was a “prominent” hedge fund manager specialized in short selling (betting that stock prices will fall). It was also the case that Rocker had spent the last couple decades insinuating to people on Wall Street that he was somehow tied to the Mob.

But Rocker was probably full of it. He didn’t have ties to the Mob. Perhaps he merely believed that his insinuations lent him a certain cachet.

* * * * * * * *

From 1973 to 1981, Rocker was a general partner in a short selling hedge fund managed by Michael Steinhardt, who is one of Wall Street’s most “prominent” investors, regularly hailed by The Wall Street Journal and CNBC as a genius and a font of wisdom.

Some years ago, Steinhardt belatedly acknowledged that he is the son of Sol “Red” Steinhardt, who was once a major player in the Genovese Mafia organization. Steinhardt, Sr. spent several years in Sing-Sing prison after a New York City prosecutor described him as the “biggest Mafia fence in America.”

Incidentally, experts concur that the Genovese Mafia family brought the Russian Mob to America.

* * * * * * * *

The largest investors in Steinhardt Jr.’s first hedge fund were associates of the Genovese Mafia (whose investments came in large sacks of cash), Marty Peretz (future founder, with Jim Cramer, of TheStreet.com ), Marc Rich (future fugitive charged with tax evasion and illegal trading with Iran and Libya), and Ivan Boesky (later imprisoned on multiple counts, most of them involving stock manipulation schemes orchestrated with “junk bond king” Michael Milken).

By 1991, Steinhardt owned another hedge fund — JGM Management – with a “prominent investor” named James Marquez. The star employee at JGM was “prominent investor” Samuel Israel III.

A few years later, Israel and Marquez founded the Bayou Group, one of the biggest hedge fund frauds in history. A significant part of the Bayou fraud involved Israel “feeding” his investors’ money into a Ponzi scheme run by Robert Booth Nichols, who has been targeted by authorities as a business associate of the Genovese Mafia family.

When Israel was sentenced to prison last year, he briefly disappeared. His car was found on a bridge. Scrawled in the dust on the hood was a note: “Suicide is Painless.”

Authorities arrested Israel’s girlfriend, whom they suspected of harboring a fugitive. Shortly after, Israel rode a red motor scooter to a Boston police station and turned himself in. Apparently, he was not dead. He had tried to fool us.

Meanwhile, Israel had filed a lawsuit against Nichols, alleging that Nichols had ripped him off. Apparently, Israel (who could not be reached for this article) would like us to believe that he is not tied to Nichols or the Genovese Mafia.

Nonetheless, Israel has a certain cachet. So do Steinhardt and James Marquez.

* * * * * * * *

In the 1990s, Steinhardt founded another hedge fund, Steinhardt Partners. The co-founder and head trader of Steinhardt Partners was a “prominent investor” named John Lattanzio.

The limited public information about Lattanzio concerns a Russian prostitute.

Apparently, Lattanzio proposed marriage to the prostitute and gave her a diamond ring. Alas, the couple separated, and Lattanzio asked for his ring back. After all, it had cost him $289,275.00.

But the prostitute seemed to believe that the ring was payment for services rendered. The dispute ended up in court, where the prostitute testified that Lattanzio had told her that he had ties to the Mafia.

Yes, said the prostitute, Lattanzio (Steinhardt Partners’ co-founder and head trader) had big-time Mafia connections, and he “would not hesitate to use them to harm me.”

From what I know of Russian strumpets, there is at least one area where they cannot be trusted – and that is where it concerns their love life. So perhaps Lattanzio had his heart broken. Perhaps, in the heat of passion, he said some crazy stuff about the Mafia to make himself seem dangerous. If that is the case, I send Mr. Lattanzio my condolences.

Indeed, I would enjoy meeting him. He has a certain cachet.

* * * * * * * *

Rocker left Steinhardt’s hedge fund in 1981 and went to work for an investment management firm called Century Capital Associates.

Information on this firm is limited, but it seems to have been largely owned in the 1980s by the Belzberg brothers — William, Sam and Hymie.

The Belzbergs were among Michael Milken’s closest cronies (family member Mark Belzberg was in fact implicated by the SEC in Milken’s stock manipulation schemes). They were at the inner core of the Milken machine – buying and selling the junk bonds of other Milken cronies. Often, the Belzbergs collaborated with Milken to blackmail, seize, or destroy public companies. .

In the late 1980s, the Belzbergs announced that they were going to take over Crazy Eddie, which was then a famous home electronics retail chain. The Belzbergs joined forces with Crazy Eddie’s founder, Eddie Antar, and the company’s chief financial officer, Sam Antar, in a supposed effort to take the company private.

This is a story for another time, but for now it suffices to say that Crazy Eddie was a massive fraud, the Belzbergs (and Milken) likely knew this already, and when the company was raided by the FBI a few months later, it emerged that Sam Antar had been feeding information to both the FBI and a lawyer, Howard Sirota, who was preparing to sue the company.




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http://www.marketrap.com/article/view_article/9152/bernard-madoff-the-mafia-and-the-friends-of-michael-milken

[seemslikeadream]

1. EXCELLENT KoKo

[seemslikeadream]

2. Oh thank god it was only the Mafia that destroyed us

I thought it was going to be georgie bush

[seemslikeadream]

3. But there he was — Monsieur Rene Thierry Magon de La Villehuchet

He was dead.

They said it was suicide.

[seemslikeadream]

4. Fund manager found dead after Madoff losses

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article5393237.ece

December 24, 2008
Fund manager found dead after Madoff losses
Times Online


A French investment manager who entrusted $2.1 billion (£1.42 billion) with Bernard Madoff was found dead in New York yesterday.

Thierry de la Villehuchet is thought to have committed suicide. He was found early yesterday morning in his office on Madison Avenue by a security guard.

He was found at his desk with both wrists slashed, with a box cutter (similar to a Stanley knife) and a bottle of sleeping pills on the floor, according to the Associated Press, citing NYPD spokesman Paul Browne.

Mr Villehuchet, 65, was the co-founder and chief executive of Access International Advisors, a fund management company.

He was "devastated" as news of the $50 billion Ponzi scheme perpetrated by Mr Madoff - the biggest corporate fraud in history - emerged, and he feared clients would turn against him in the courts, his friend said.

He had been trying for a week to recover at least $1.5 billion in European funds that Access International had invested through Mr Madoff's business, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Earlier in his career, Mr Villehuchet worked for the capital markets division of Credit Lyonnais SA as founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Credit Lyonnais Securities (USA).

Mr Villehuchet founded Access in 1994 with Patrick Littaye. One of the firm’s partners was Philippe Junot, the former husband of Princess Caroline of Monaco, according to marketing documents.

Prince Michel of Yugoslavia is an investor relations executive, according to the documents.

He was married without children.

“Access was his whole life, and Madoff was a manager in whom he had complete trust. I lunched with him two weeks ago and he said, how lucky it was that Madoff was the only manager still doing well at the moment," the friend told AFP.

Mr Madoff's fraud has claimed victims including some of the world's biggest banks, wealthy individuals and philanthropists, and families who had trusted him with their life savings.

So far, it is thought that only 60 per cent of the victims of the fraud have been identified.



By Owen Thomas, 4:29 PM on Tue Dec 23 2008
gawker.com

... Thierry de la Villehuchet, CEO of Access International Advisors, a money-management operation placed investors' funds in Madoff vehicles, stabbed himself to death with a box cutter after taking sleeping pills, according to a to New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, who spoke to Bloomberg.

De La Villehuchet was found “with his feet propped up on his desk, a trash pail nearby to collect blood,” and no sign of a second person, Kelly said in the interview.

The money manager had “multiple stab wounds” to his arms and wrists, and a box-cutter and pills were found nearby, Kelly said at a news conference. No suicide note was found.

The Huffington Post has found what it believes is a photo of Villehuchet at a 2007 Hermès store opening. He is neatly put together. How fitting then, that the scene of his death suggests he wanted to keep things clean at his death. Left with a mess he couldn't clean up, Villehuchet didn't want to leave someone scrubbing blood stains out of the carpet. ...

http://gawker.com/5117204/ruined-madoff-investors-gruesome-suicide-scene
•••••••


Yachtsman was proud of ties to aristocracy
BY PHYLLIS FURMAN
NY DAILY NEWS
December 23m 2008

... A well-known investor, the 65-year-old de la Villehuchet hailed from a long line of French bluebloods. The Magon in his name refers to one of France's most powerful families.

He came from Brittany and held on to a chateau there that had been in his family for centuries, in addition to his sprawling home in New Rochelle in Westchester.

"He would say 20 of his ancestors went to guillotine during the French Revolution," remembered Guy Gurney, a photographer from Darien, Conn., who raced boats with de la Villehuchet.

"There was nothing snobby about Thierry," Gurney said. "He would do anything for you."

Yachting and racing were a great passion, and he was a member of several clubs, including the Larchmont Yacht Club. Married but childless, he owned two 22-foot Starr Class sloops; one kept in Connecticut, another in France.
Earlier this month, de la Villehuchet raced in a competitive regatta in Miami and finished 12th. "He competed with great enthusiasm," Gurney said.

The yachtsman got his start in the financial world in France, working for Paris-based Banque Paribas. In 1983, he founded Interfinance, a New York brokerage firm.

He would make his name as the founder and CEO of Credit Lyonnais Securities, the U.S. branch of the prominent French investment bank. He worked there from 1988 through 1994, before setting off to start Access International.

Access started as marketing advisory firm, but later turned into a hedge fund managing $3 billion with 26 employees. Using his connections, he tapped the wealthiest and most powerful echelons of Europe's high society, including France's second-richest family, the Bettencourts.

Along the way, de la Villehuchet met Madoff and was charmed. One of his funds, LUXALPHA SICAV-American Selection fund, was invested solely with Madoff.
•••••••


Head of Fund Invested in Madoff Is Found Dead
NYT
DECEMBER 23, 2008

Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, a founder of the hedge fund Access International Advisors, was found dead Tuesday in his office in Manhattan. His fund reportedly lost as much as $1.4 billion that had been invested with Bernard L. Madoff, the money manager accused of running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

A spokeswoman for the New York City Medical Examiner confirmed to Reuters that Mr. de la Villehuchet was pronounced dead Tuesday morning at a Madison Avenue building.

Authorities told DealBook that Mr. de la Villehuchet was found in his office with injuries to his arms, having apparently slit his wrists.

Mr. de la Villehuchet, 65, had been trying to recover the money that Access International raised in Europe and invested through Mr. Madoff’s business, according to La Tribune, which first reported the news, citing an unnamed source. ...

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/23/head-of-fund-invested-in-madoff-said-to-commit-suicide/?ref=nyregion

[seemslikeadream]

5. Madoff's family had to have been in on the fraud all along.

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/mrs_panstreppon/


Wealthy and sophisticated people like Bernie Madoff don't just break down one day and confess to running a multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme. Maybe his sons did report Bernie to the FBI but it was part of an act set up to distract the public's attention away from the obvious - Bernie Madoff's family had to have been in on the fraud all along.

The Madoffs met with their high-priced and high-powered attorneys long before last month about how best to give it up. The Madoffs, I'm sure, have the goods on a lot of crooks on Wall Street and leveraged the information to their advantage.

Maybe the Bush administration came to an agreement with the Madoffs whereby Bernie takes the rap for the fraud, goes to prison for a few years and the rest of the Madoffs are off the hook and keep their money.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Chuck Schumer and Joe Lieberman helped broker the deal for the Madoffs. In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Schumer pushed for Michael Mukasey to be AG so Mukasey could minimize fallout from the Madoff scandal.

No one in NY or DC wants to shake investor confidence in Wall Street by telling the investors the truth about corruption in the US financial markets. Bernie, Peter and the rest of the Madoffs are counting on it.

[Jambalaya]

6. GMAC and Gabriel Fund(Madoff feeder fund)

Tue., February 17, 2009 Shvat 23, 5769 | | Israel Time: 10:28 (EST+7)

web haaretz.com


Tshuva taking aim at Bank Leumi

By Eti Aflalo



It looks like real estate and energy baron Yitzhak Tshuva is now eyeing the banking sector.

Tshuva owns the controlling interest in the Delek group of companies, which encompasses real estate, energy and vehicle importing, and also owns the controlling interest in the Phoenix insurance company. Now Tshuva apparently has his eye on a 5% interest in Leumi, Israel's biggest bank in terms of market cap.


The 5% share at hand is currently owned by Ezra Merkin's hedge fund Gabriel Capital, and several local market players have been expressing interest.
In December 2008 Merkin said Gabriel would be selling its holdings and closing shop in the wake of the Bernard Madoff fraud. Since then, Leumi's top brass have been receiving calls about Gabriel's stake in the bank.

The timing isn't fortuitous, from Gabriel's perspective: Leumi shares lost 42% of their value last year.

The Cerberus-Gabriel Group bought 9.9% of Leumi about three years ago, when the government decided to privatize the bank. The group wanted the controlling stake, but found its bid foiled because of regulatory constraints. Ultimately, the group was forced to split the interest equally between the two hedge funds, Cerberus and Gabriel.

Another rumor is that whoever buys Gabriel's share of Leumi would try to buy Cerberus' stake, too. Forget it, say sources near Cerberus: It isn't selling. Not right now, anyway.

The Gabriel management might be just testing the waters, trying to find out what price it could get for its Leumi holding and the chances that the Bank of Israel would approve the sale.


If he really wants to buy both Gabriel's and Cerberus' holdings in Leumi, he'd have to sell part of Phoenix: The rules won't let him own more than 10% in more than one financial institution, including banks and insurance companies.

"There has been no decision to buy Leumi shares from Gabriel," was all a spokesman for Tshuva would say._______________________


PS> : Cerebus is the investment group that included John Snow and Dan Qualyle-the firm owns 51% of GMAC.



!‎

[seemslikeadream]

8. Thanks

:hi:


here's the link for that

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1064448.html

[seemslikeadream]

7. kick for jailed Madoff

[earth mom]

9. Kick & Bookmarked. Too late to recommend, damn it!

:kick:

[ebay_bizzare]

10. nice keep going !

nice keep going !