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Something doesn't add up with the Cert count I have to agree with the statement below:
"All of this effort and the company ran out of money to complete the counting of the certificates that were sitting on the floor right below the computer? Are they kidding us? The cert pull was the single most important piece of evidence the company could produce, but it did not even complete it (even though they knew the NSS years before because they have the DTCC info long before the cert pull was completed)."
This is great lets watch and see where the bailout money is really used to expose the SCUMS.
The SEC is a civil agency with no criminal authority.
It desperately needs criminal authority. Many Wall Streeters and their lawyers belong in prison. The Justice Department has to move criminally, usually after the SEC has moved civilly. Putting the SEC under the FBI could facilitate the process.
Sec has been playing with their writeups about naked shorting of the stocks for years now, yet you will not find one action against any broker or financial participants in all these years that SEC has taken against illegal issuing of naked shorted shares,
but they prefer to publicly call it failed to deliver shares.
The SEC protects simply the corruption of Wall street participants and covers up their own acts in front of the public they should be protecting in the first place.
This has to stop!
The regulatory arm of the New York Stock Exchange has censured and fined Citigroup Inc.'s (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research) Smith Barney unit $50 million for improper trading practices, including deceptive market timing by its brokers.
The penalty includes $40 million in customer compensation, NYSE Regulation said on Tuesday. The money will be put into a fund for customers who invested in affected mutual funds.
Of the $50 million total, $5 million will go to the state of New Jersey in connection with a separate regulatory matter arising out the same conduct. The remaining $5 million will be paid to NYSE Regulation.
NYSE Regulation said the Citigroup unit, an NYSE member firm, violated rules by failing to supervise trading of mutual funds and maintain adequate records.
Between January 2000 and September 2003, Citigroup failed to supervise the activity of some financial consultants who engaged in deceptive market timing trades, enabling them and their customers to evade detection by mutual funds.
NYSE Regulation said more than 150 financial consultants engaged in about 250,000 market timing trades in 1,500 accounts on behalf of more than 1,100 customers, generating gross revenues of $32.5 million.
These consultants concealed their identities or the identities of their timing customers to avoid trading limits on mutual funds, and traded excessively, NYSE Regulation said. Deceptive practices included using multiple identification numbers, multiple tax ID numbers, and multiple customer accounts to execute these trades.
Market timing is the frequent trading of mutual fund shares to exploit inefficiencies in pricing or market movements. The practice is not illegal unless deception is used, but can be harmful to mutual fund investors because it dilutes the value of their shares and creates extra costs for the funds due to excessive trading, NYSE Regulation said.
"We cooperated fully with the regulators and are very pleased to resolved these matters," said Susan Thomson, a Citigroup spokeswoman, in an e-mailed statement.
Since 2003, the Smith Barney unit has completed the implementation of relevant business practices that meet or exceed industry standards, Thomson said.
Citigroup neither admitted nor denied guilt, NYSE Regulation said.
Citigroup shares were down 82 cents, or 1.6 percent, at $50.03 in morning trade on the New York Stock Exchange.
The NYSE is a unit of trans-Atlantic exchange operator NYSE Euronext (NYX.N: Quote, Profile, Research).
(Reporting by Anupreeta Das)
the rest is here:
http://ragingbull.quote.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=CLB01332&read=645
If she takes half of something that wasn't his to begin with thats a cause of action. She needs to return these assets.
Some serious consideration needs to be take to figure out why Citigroup needs the rescue effort, and how CMKX is involved!!!
Citigroup and CMKX are linked in a big way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We will see if what he preaches he practices!
A through investigation into CMKX is a micro look at the bigger picture of the entire stock market. Its time some of the big boys get involved in figuring out where the money goes.
Some serious consideration needs to be take to figure out why Citigroup needs the rescue effort, and how CMKX is involved!!!
Citigroup and CMKX are linked in a big way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A Plea for Justice:
The Letter to President Obama
Below is the letter sent to President Obama, selected public officials, and the media. We encourage all shareholders to send respectful comments of support to the Original Recipients, and to print and mail or e-mail this letter to anyone who might help bring justice to CMKX shareholders. Please include a link to this web page in your correspondence.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To President Barack Obama
January 20, 2009
Dear President Obama,
CMKM Diamonds would like to congratulate you on your resounding and historic victory and inauguration as our 44th President of the United States. As a personal longtime supporter of your efforts, I have complete faith that you have the nation's best interests at heart, and that you are sincere in your promise to usher in a new era of responsibility and accountability for our country. It is this belief that compelled me to write this letter, which is supported by documents which can be seen at the website listed below. I apologize in advance for its length, but this was an extremely complex scam, and, I believe, a very important issue.
CMKM Diamonds and its shareholders respectfully ask that our government act responsibly in seeking justice in one of the largest singular frauds ever perpetrated in our financial markets. Although CMKM Diamonds, Inc. (trading as CMKX) was delisted over three years ago, the company's current management and its shareholders still await the filing of criminal charges against the numerous individuals who defrauded over 50,000 shareholders of an estimated $250 million. We also ask that the federal agencies whose job it is to protect those 50,000 shareholders accept the responsibility for their failures, and support CMKM's current management in their efforts to find restitution for the company and its shareholders.
Over the past few months, the SEC and other financial regulatory agencies have been under considerable criticism for their failures to protect shareholders from massive fraud in scams such as the $50 billion Ponzi scheme run by former NASDAQ Chairman Bernard L. Madoff. While the SEC's mishandling of the Madoff scheme has garnered widespread media coverage and criticism from Congress and SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, the CMKM Diamonds tragedy has been largely ignored.
From late 2003 until the company was delisted in late 2005, criminals in control of CMKM Diamonds, Inc. sold over 703 billion shares of stock to unsuspecting shareholders in the largest penny stock fraud in history. It was the most shares ever sold in a single company. Corporate insiders were aided and abetted in their crimes by high-powered attorneys, accountants, transfer agents, major banking institutions, brokerage houses, and clearing firms. It occurred right under the noses of the SEC and NASD (now FINRA), both agencies ignoring dozens of blatant warning signs, allowing the scam to go on far longer than it should have. This fraud represents one of the most egregious miscarriages of justice ever in our financial markets.
The company's stock was promoted to mostly blue-collar, Main Street investors on huge billboards with "Got CMKX?" written across them, company sponsored NHRA race cars, and lavish parties thrown with shareholders' money. Many CMKX shareholders lost everything, enticed by former CEO Urban Casavant's false promises to create a "million millionaires" and by stories of gold, diamonds, uranium, and even platinum mines. Homes were lost, marriages ruined, and lives destroyed. Casavant even convinced dozens of our soldiers stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq to invest in CMKX, giving them false hope of providing for their families while they were defending our country. One investor (a retired New York firefighter who was at the World Trade Center on 9/11), who lost everything, put over $200,000 of his own money into CMKX in hopes of using the return on his investment to open a retreat for the widows of firefighters who perished on 9/11.
Documents clearly show that a SEC investigation into CMKX was well underway as early as May of 2004, while the fraud was still underway, and before hundreds of billions of shares were sold to investors. While the Saskatchewan Financial Services Commission first halted Canadian trading in the company on October 26, 2004, CMKX continued to trade in the U.S. for another full year. Incredibly, some individuals involved in the scam continued to fraudulently sell stock for years after the company's stock was revoked.
A letter signed by an SEC staff attorney and faxed to CMKX transfer agent Helen Bagley on May 26, 2004 requested documents from 1st Global Transfer pertaining to purported mastermind John Edwards, CEO Urban Casavant and others involved in the CMKX scam. A file from Bagley's office notated "These were copies SEC made" clearly shows that the SEC knew about the fraud before the stock ran up 1000% in price, only to drop back down to its original price, costing shareholders tens of millions of dollars in a matter of days. On March 26, 2008, a copy of the SEC fax to 1st Global and an accompanying letter detailing possible negligence in the SEC's handling of the CMKX fraud was supplied to SEC Inspector General David Kotz and to the General Accounting Office.
By design, the scheme was complex and widespread. The SEC investigation would eventually encompass 200,000 pages of documents and delve into the involvement of dozens of individuals, trading accounts, banking institutions, and other fraudulent companies. CMKX laundered their money through no less than 35 bank accounts, and Edwards, alone, had 36 trading accounts and dozens of fraudulent companies set up to hide the money trail. Understaffed and underfunded, the SEC investigation would not reach a conclusion for years.
To the SEC's credit, they eventually filed civil complaints against John Edwards, Urban Casavant, corporate attorney Brian Dvorak, eight other individuals, as well as three corporate entities in April of 2008, a full two years after CMKX was delisted. Many of those involved, however, including CFO David DeSormeau, (ex-SEC attorney) attorney D. Roger Glenn (who wrote opinion letters allowing over 300 billion shares of stock to be dumped into the market), and co-conspirators John Edward Dohnau, Michael Williams, and Rendal Williams, plus a cast of numerous other associates, have not been charged at all for their part in this massive fraud.
Independent of and parallel to the SEC's investigation, a Task Force consisting of the Las Vegas Divisions of the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the IRS's Criminal Investigation Division, with the co-operation of the SEC, conducted its own major investigation into this massive fraud. In September of 2006, a member of the FBI team said "I don't want to say dates because it's very complicated, but I'd like to say that we're weeks away from completing our investigation and issuing indictments". To date, the combined efforts of the DOJ, FBI, and IRS have yet to produce a single criminal charge filed against any individual or entity involved in robbing 50,000 CMKX shareholders. Many of the criminals have already fled the country, while others are involved in new scams with the intent of robbing other investors.
Let me repeat that: To date, the combined efforts of the DOJ, FBI, and IRS have yet to produce a single criminal charge filed against any individual or entity involved in robbing 50,000 CMKX shareholders.
It is not just the regulatory and criminal agencies who have failed to protect investors in this and other major financial scams over the past decade. While you, along with Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator John McCain, current SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, and numerous other members of Congress have all addressed the role that manipulative short selling (commonly called "naked short selling") has played in the meltdown of our financial markets, it is important to not overlook the broader issue of fails to deliver. Smaller companies such as CMKX (many of which are themselves scams) are often prey. Brokers create a "piling on" effect by selling millions or even billions of shares of stock with no intent to ever purchase those shares on the open market. In the case of CMKX, while management and their cohorts were already flooding the market with hundreds of billions of unregistered and illegal shares, there is strong evidence to suggests that brokers not only aided and abetted the criminals in their schemes, but eventually began to directly defraud shareholders themselves by selling even more shares than were actually issued. Until brokers are forced to open their trading records, it is impossible to say how many billions, or even hundreds of billions of shares were sold and never delivered to shareholders' accounts.
A single brokerage firm, NevWest Securities, utilizing clearing firm Computer Clearing Services (now owned by Penson Worldwide, Inc.) helped John Edwards trade over 250 billion shares of CMKX stock totaling over $53 million. Almost two years after the fact, the NASD (now FINRA) charged NevWest with "failing to file Suspicious Activity Reports (‘SAR’), or cease trading in multiple accounts owned and controlled" by Edwards. In the 28-page complaint, the NASD also charged NevWest with failing to “adequately perform due diligence, file SARs, or cease effecting wire transfers involving $43 million through 139 separate wires from at least 28 of the accounts John Edwards had opened at NevWest to various bank accounts”. In what has become the norm in securities fraud cases, NevWest received little more than a slap on the wrist for their part in the scam, eventually paying a token fine of just $100,000 “without admitting or denying the allegations of the Complaint".
More troubling still are the phone records from NevWest, which show that they contacted the SEC each time Edwards came in with CMKX certs to sell, many of which were clearly forged and fraudulent, some even "signed" by an individual who had been deceased for months. Instead of taking action to halt the obvious fraud against innocent shareholders, the SEC and NASD (FINRA) ignored the evidence and dozens of other red flags, allowing the scheme to continue unabated, costing unsuspecting buyers of CMKX stock hundreds of millions of dollars.
In another series of violations ignored by federal regulators, on May 6, 2005, clearing firm Jefferies and Co. sent a letter to both the NASD (FINRA) and the SEC admitting they had traded 111 billion shares of CMKX outside the system, or "ex-clearing". Jefferies said that they made a "business and operational risk decision to allow a limited number of broker-dealer customers" who were long sellers of CMKX to settle trades outside the clearing system. In the month of July, 2005 alone, Jefferies did 80 transactions involving CMKX through ex-clearing. Shortly afterwards, Jefferies and Co. announced record revenues and earnings for the quarter ending September, 2005. The NASD, then under the leadership of Mary Shapiro, waited a full year after receiving the letter to charge broker NevWest with trading violations, and never filed a single charge against Jefferies or any other broker.
Clearing firms and brokers weren't the only ones who ignored red flags that should have triggered the filing of Suspicious Activity Reports. Several Nevada banks, most prominently Silver State Bank and Wells Fargo Bank, allowed CMKM Diamonds and related fraudulent companies to run hundreds of millions of dollars through dozens of accounts while seemingly turning a blind eye to blatant irregularities. Casavant wrote multi-million dollars checks to himself and family members out of company accounts at Silver State Bank on a regular basis, many of them on temporary checks that he didn't even bother to number, while Edwards opened dozens of fraudulent accounts at both Wells Fargo and Silver State, and often wrote multi-million dollar checks on accounts opened just days earlier.
Among the transactions executed by Silver State Bank:
• Wire transfers totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars were executed with only the notation “transferring to Personal Acct. per cust. transfer via phone”.
• Checks from various accounts set up as shell companies and controlled by Casavant and Edwards written out only to “CASH”…including one for $350,000.
• Multi-million dollar wire transfers between Edwards and Casavant run through dozens of accounts they controlled there.
• Millions of dollars written out of company accounts to Casavant and his wife Carolyn, and several family members, often on temporary checks.
CMKM Diamonds, Inc. was officially revoked as a publicly-traded company on October 28, 2005, but the saga doesn't end there. New management has filed numerous lawsuits against those who defrauded the company and its shareholders, and has repeatedly offered to provide assistance and information to any regulatory or criminal agency who requests it. A book written about the saga called "The Naked Truth: Investing in the Stock Play of a Lifetime" has been distributed to several federal and criminal agencies, and the media has written a handful of stories about the scam. Still, 50,000 Main Street shareholders fight for justice, feeling not only betrayed by the company that they invested their hard-earned money in, but failed by federal regulators and a system that should have protected them.
It is not, however, too late for our government agencies to find redemption in this tragic miscarriage of justice. In the case of CMKM Diamonds, the four agencies that expended considerable time, effort, manpower, and money to investigate this massive fraud have a golden opportunity to show the country that they are serious about cleaning up the stock market. By immediately issuing indictments against those who defrauded tens of thousands of innocent investors in the largest penny stock fraud in our nation's history, our criminal agencies can send a clear message to anyone who would attempt to manipulate our financial system with criminal intent.
Furthermore, the SEC and FINRA need to follow up on their earlier charges by taking clear and decisive action against not just the criminals themselves, but against anyone else who helped to perpetrate this massive fraud. While better regulations and stronger enforcement of existing laws might serve to deter some criminal activity, the only truly effective way to clean up our financial system is to enact swift and harsh punishment against the criminals themselves, whether they be at the corporate level, attorneys, accountants, transfer agents, brokers, market makers, clearing firms, or, as in the case of CMKX, all of the above. Put the criminals behind bars, or they will find ways to commit more crimes involving new victims.
New management in CMKM Diamonds, Inc. has taken strong action in their efforts to recoup money stolen from the company and its shareholders, but it should not be up to a handful of dedicated individuals to right this monumental wrong alone. While our government hands out hundreds of billions of dollars to bailout our major financial institutions, individual victims of financial fraud are left with little or no recourse whatsoever. The Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) is available to help those who lose their money when brokerage firms fail. What safeguards are in place to help those who have been victimized by fraud that could and should have been prevented had our federal regulators not been asleep at the wheel?
I respectfully request, in fact I'm pleading with anyone who has compassion for their fellow citizens, to join us in our fight for justice in this case. You, Mr. President, are in that position of power. Please make the call now. Instruct the DOJ/FBI/IRS Task Force to act immediately so that these criminals do not escape justice, and so that others will be protected from further fraud by this group of hardened criminals. The current management of CMKM Diamonds, Inc., and, I'm certain, many of the company's dedicated shareholders, are more than willing to assist you in any way possible.
If you are an elected official, do your duty and take the steps to right this wrong. If you are a member of the media, give this story the exposure it deserves. If you are a CMKX shareholder or simply a citizen concerned about justice for Main Street in a country that is in dire need of positive action against fraud and crime in our markets, forward this letter to everyone you know. Contact your elected officials, members of the press, anyone who might help us make this company an example of justice served instead of justice denied.
Sincerely,
Mark Faulk, CEO
CMKM Diamonds, Inc.
If you need any further assistance, please contact Mark Faulk at 4justice@cmkmdiamondsinc.com
Supporting documents may be viewed at: www.cmkmdiamondsinc.com/supp_docs_in...
Supporting Documents:
Jefferies letter to NASD
SEC fax to 1st Global Transfer
Silver State Bank CMKX check to Urban Casavant for $3,000,000
Silver State Bank CMKX check to Carolyn Casavant for $3,000,000
Silver State Bank CMKX petty cash check for $350,000
Wells Fargo Bank checks from St. George Metals (John Edwards) to CMKM Diamonds
Response from NevWest Securities detailing regular contacts with SEC and NASD
Letter Recipients:
President Barack Obama
Vice President Joe Biden
Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) Senate Majority Leader
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Speaker of the House
Senator Mitch Mitchell (R-KY) Senate Republican Leader
Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) House Republican Leader
Heads of various investigations:
Charyn Aldred, IRS
Brian Pugh, DOJ
Andrew Petillon, SEC
Ryan Randall, FBI
David Kotz, Inspector General, SEC
U.S. Senate Banking Committee:
Christopher J. Dodd, Chairman (D-CT)
Richard C. Shelby, Ranking Member (R-AL)
Tim Johnson (D-SD)
Jack Reed (D-RI)
Charles E. Schumer (D-NY)
Evan Bayh (D-IN)
Tom Carper (D-DE)
Robert Menendez (D-NJ)
Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI)
Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
Robert P. Casey (D-PA)
Jon Tester (D-MT)
Robert F. Bennett (R-UT)
Wayne Allard (R-CO)
Michael B. Enzi (R-WY)
Chuck Hagel (R-NE)
Jim Bunning (R-KY)
Mike Crapo (R-ID)
Elizabeth Dole (R-NC)
Mel Martinez (R-FL)
Bob Corker (R-TN)
U.S. Senate Finance Committee:
Max Baucus, Chairman (D-MT)
Charles Grassley, Ranking Committee (R-IA)
John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV)
Kent Conrad (D-ND)
Jeff Bingaham (D-NM)
John F. Kerry (D-MA)
Blanche L. Lincoln (D-AR)
Ron Wyden (D-OR)
Charles E. Schumer (D-NY)
Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
Ken Salazar (D-CO)
Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT)
Olympia J. Snowe (R-ME)
Jon Kyl (R-AZ)
Gordon Smith (R-OR)
Jim Bunning (R-KY)
Mike Crapo (R-ID)
Pat Roberts (R-KS)
John Ensign (R-NV)
John E. Sununu (R-NH)
Other Senators and Congressmen:
Rep. Joe Wilson, (R-SC)
Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL)
Senator Susan Collins (R-ME)
Senator James M. Talent (R-MO)
It will certainly not end up in file 13.
I don't believe it will end up in the Red file. lol
However although not a high priority it will have some priority.
Mainly because it is something they will be interested in to get to the bottom of the current corruption in the USA.
The first step to figuring out why billions of dollars are required for the bailout is to follow the money...
Follow the MONEY trail!!!!!!!!!
CMKX is a prime example of the bigger picture...
Listen carefully TSXminer!
If there is any wrong doing we are a determined group of individuals that will get to the bottom of this.
Now perhaps with some further assistance from the White House and President Barack Obama we will be able to stop the corruption at the highest levels.
Why do you think UC is not in Jail yet "does it seems like he is almost untouchable by the law ;) "
Its not MAGIC!
They certainly do. They need to be given more authority so they can act more quikly and move in like a SWAT team.
Especially when it involves sums of money over $1,000,000
and thousands of shareholders.
In a way we don't really know where that money is being used do we ? I can bet anyone here its not being used legally hence we may be aiding Terrorist NO ?
This is HUGE Faulk is an excellent writer!
If this doesn't get the attention it deserves may God have mercy on the USA. What has transpired is wrong on so many levels and POOOOOOOOOOOOOF .... hmmmm
To President Barack Obama
January 20, 2009
Dear President Obama,
CMKM Diamonds would like to congratulate you on your resounding and historic victory and inauguration as our 44th President of the United States. We wish you the best of luck in the monumental tasks that await you, and have complete faith that you are sincere in your promise to usher in a new era of responsibility and accountability for our country.
As a personal longtime supporter of your efforts (I first wrote an article supporting you for president on my website in January of 2005, perhaps the first official endorsement of an Obama candidacy), I have complete faith that you have the nation's best interests at heart. I truly believe that you will defend Main Street as passionately as your predecessor supported Wall Street. It is this belief that compelled me to write this letter, which is supported by documents which can be seen at the website listed below. I apologize in advance for its length, but this was an extremely complex scam, and, I believe, a very important issue.
CMKM Diamonds and its shareholders respectfully ask that our government act responsibly in seeking justice in one of the largest singular frauds ever perpetrated in our financial markets. Although CMKM Diamonds, Inc. (trading as CMKX) was delisted over three years ago, the company's current management and its shareholders still await the filing of criminal charges against the numerous individuals who defrauded over 50,000 shareholders of an estimated $250 million. We also ask that the federal agencies whose job it is to protect those 50,000 shareholders accept the responsibility for their failures, and support CMKM's current management in their efforts to find restitution for the company and its shareholders.
Over the past few months, the SEC and other financial regulatory agencies have been under considerable criticism for their failures to protect shareholders from massive fraud in scams such as the $50 billion Ponzi scheme run by former NASDAQ Chairman Bernard L. Madoff. While the SEC's mishandling of the Madoff scheme has garnered widespread media coverage and criticism from Congress and SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, the CMKM Diamonds tragedy has been largely ignored.
From late 2003 until the company was delisted in late 2005, criminals in control of CMKM Diamonds, Inc. sold over 703 billion shares of stock to unsuspecting shareholders in the largest penny stock fraud in history. It was the most shares ever sold in a single company. Corporate insiders were aided and abetted in their crimes by high-powered attorneys, accountants, transfer agents, major banking institutions, brokerage houses, and clearing firms. It occurred right under the noses of the SEC and NASD (now FINRA), both agencies ignoring dozens of blatant warning signs, allowing the scam to go on far longer than it should have. This fraud represents one of the most egregious miscarriages of justice ever in our financial markets.
The company's stock was promoted to mostly blue-collar, Main Street investors on huge billboards with "Got CMKX?" written across them, company sponsored NHRA race cars, and lavish parties thrown with shareholders' money. Many CMKX shareholders lost everything, enticed by former CEO Urban Casavant's false promises to create a "million millionaires" and by stories of gold, diamonds, uranium, and even platinum mines. Homes were lost, marriages ruined, and lives destroyed. Casavant even convinced dozens of our soldiers stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq to invest in CMKX, giving them false hope of providing for their families while they were defending our country. One investor (a retired New York firefighter who was at the World Trade Center on 9/11), who lost everything, put over $200,000 of his own money into CMKX in hopes of using the return on his investment to open a retreat for the widows of firefighters who perished on 9/11.
Documents clearly show that a SEC investigation into CMKX was well underway as early as May of 2004, while the fraud was still underway, and before hundreds of billions of shares were sold to investors. While the Saskatchewan Financial Services Commission first halted Canadian trading in the company on October 26, 2004, CMKX continued to trade in the U.S. for another full year. Incredibly, some individuals involved in the scam continued to fraudulently sell stock for years after the company's stock was revoked.
A letter signed by an SEC staff attorney and faxed to CMKX transfer agent Helen Bagley on May 26, 2004 requested documents from 1st Global Transfer pertaining to purported mastermind John Edwards, CEO Urban Casavant and others involved in the CMKX scam. A file from Bagley's office notated "These were copies SEC made" clearly shows that the SEC knew about the fraud before the stock ran up 1000% in price, only to drop back down to its original price, costing shareholders tens of millions of dollars in a matter of days. On March 26, 2008, a copy of the SEC fax to 1st Global and an accompanying letter detailing possible negligence in the SEC's handling of the CMKX fraud was supplied to SEC Inspector General David Kotz and to the General Accounting Office.
By design, the scheme was complex and widespread. The SEC investigation would eventually encompass 200,000 pages of documents and delve into the involvement of dozens of individuals, trading accounts, banking institutions, and other fraudulent companies. CMKX laundered their money through no less than 35 bank accounts, and Edwards, alone, had 36 trading accounts and dozens of fraudulent companies set up to hide the money trail. Understaffed and underfunded, the SEC investigation would not reach a conclusion for years.
To the SEC's credit, they eventually filed civil complaints against John Edwards, Urban Casavant, corporate attorney Brian Dvorak, eight other individuals, as well as three corporate entities in April of 2008, a full two years after CMKX was delisted. Many of those involved, however, including CFO David DeSormeau, attorney D. Roger Glenn (who wrote opinion letters allowing over 300 billion shares of stock to be dumped into the market), and co-conspirators John Edward Dohnau, Michael Williams, and Rendal Williams, plus a cast of numerous other associates, have not been charged at all for their part in this massive fraud.
Independent of and parallel to the SEC's investigation, a Task Force consisting of the Las Vegas Divisions of the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the IRS's Criminal Investigation Division, with the co-operation of the SEC, conducted its own major investigation into this massive fraud. In September of 2006, a member of the FBI team said "I don't want to say dates because it's very complicated, but I'd like to say that we're weeks away from completing our investigation and issuing indictments". To date, the combined efforts of the DOJ, FBI, and IRS have yet to produce a single criminal charge filed against any individual or entity involved in robbing 50,000 CMKX shareholders. Many of the criminals have already fled the country, while others are involved in new scams with the intent of robbing other investors.
Let me repeat that: To date, the combined efforts of the DOJ, FBI, and IRS have yet to produce a single criminal charge filed against any individual or entity involved in robbing 50,000 CMKX shareholders.
It is not just the regulatory and criminal agencies who have failed to protect investors in this and other major financial scams over the past decade. While you, along with Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator John McCain, current SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, and numerous other members of Congress have all addressed the role that manipulative short selling (commonly called "naked short selling") has played in the meltdown of our financial markets, it is important to not overlook the broader issue of fails to deliver. Smaller companies such as CMKX (many of which are themselves scams) are often prey. Brokers create a "piling on" effect by selling millions or even billions of shares of stock with no intent to ever purchase those shares on the open market. In the case of CMKX, while management and their cohorts were already flooding the market with hundreds of billions of unregistered and illegal shares, there is strong evidence to suggests that brokers not only aided and abetted the criminals in their schemes, but eventually began to directly defraud shareholders themselves by selling even more shares than were actually issued. Until brokers are forced to open their trading records, it is impossible to say how many billions, or even hundreds of billions of shares were sold and never delivered to shareholders' accounts.
A single brokerage firm, NevWest Securities, utilizing clearing firm Computer Clearing Services (now owned by Penson Worldwide, Inc.) helped John Edwards trade over 250 billion shares of CMKX stock totaling over $53 million. Almost two years after the fact, the NASD (now FINRA) charged NevWest with "failing to file Suspicious Activity Reports (‘SAR’), or cease trading in multiple accounts owned and controlled" by Edwards. In the 28-page complaint, the NASD also charged NevWest with failing to “adequately perform due diligence, file SARs, or cease effecting wire transfers involving $43 million through 139 separate wires from at least 28 of the accounts John Edwards had opened at NevWest to various bank accounts”. In what has become the norm in securities fraud cases, NevWest received little more than a slap on the wrist for their part in the scam, eventually paying a token fine of just $100,000 “without admitting or denying the allegations of the Complaint".
More troubling still are the phone records from NevWest, which show that they contacted the SEC each time Edwards came in with CMKX certs to sell, many of which were clearly forged and fraudulent, some even "signed" by an individual who had been deceased for months. Instead of taking action to halt the obvious fraud against innocent shareholders, the SEC and NASD (FINRA) ignored the evidence and dozens of other red flags, allowing the scheme to continue unabated, costing unsuspecting buyers of CMKX stock hundreds of millions of dollars.
In another series of violations ignored by federal regulators, on May 6, 2005, clearing firm Jefferies and Co. sent a letter to both the NASD (FINRA) and the SEC admitting they had traded 111 billion shares of CMKX outside the system, or "ex-clearing". Jefferies said that they made a "business and operational risk decision to allow a limited number of broker-dealer customers" who were long sellers of CMKX to settle trades outside the clearing system. In the month of July, 2005 alone, Jefferies did 80 transactions involving CMKX through ex-clearing. Shortly afterwards, Jefferies and Co. announced record revenues and earnings for the quarter ending September, 2005. The NASD, then under the leadership of Mary Shapiro, waited a full year after receiving the letter to charge broker NevWest with trading violations, and never filed a single charge against Jefferies or any other broker.
Clearing firms and brokers weren't the only ones who ignored red flags that should have triggered the filing of Suspicious Activity Reports. Several Nevada banks, most prominently Silver State Bank (whose Board of Directors included Senator John McCain's son Andrew McCain) and Wells Fargo Bank, allowed CMKM Diamonds and related fraudulent companies to run hundreds of millions of dollars through dozens of accounts while seemingly turning a blind eye to blatant irregularities. Casavant wrote multi-million dollars checks to himself and family members out of company accounts at Silver State Bank on a regular basis, many of them on temporary checks that he didn't even bother to number, while Edwards opened dozens of fraudulent accounts at both Wells Fargo and Silver State, and often wrote multi-million dollar checks on accounts opened just days earlier.
Among the transactions executed by Silver State Bank:
• Wire transfers totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars were executed with only the notation “transferring to Personal Acct. per cust. transfer via phone”.
• Checks from various accounts set up as shell companies and controlled by Casavant and Edwards written out only to “CASH”…including one for $350,000.
• Multi-million dollar wire transfers between Edwards and Casavant run through dozens of accounts they controlled there.
• Millions of dollars written out of company accounts to Casavant and his wife Carolyn, and several family members, often on temporary checks.
CMKM Diamonds, Inc. was officially revoked as a publicly-traded company on October 28, 2005, but the saga doesn't end there. New management has filed numerous lawsuits against those who defrauded the company and its shareholders, and has repeatedly offered to provide assistance and information to any regulatory or criminal agency who requests it. A book written about the saga called "The Naked Truth: Investing in the Stock Play of a Lifetime" has been distributed to several federal and criminal agencies, and the media has written a handful of stories about the scam. Still, 50,000 Main Street shareholders fight for justice, feeling not only betrayed by the company that they invested their hard-earned money in, but failed by federal regulators and a system that should have protected them.
It is not, however, too late for our government agencies to find redemption in this tragic miscarriage of justice. In the case of CMKM Diamonds, the four agencies that expended considerable time, effort, manpower, and money to investigate this massive fraud have a golden opportunity to show the country that they are serious about cleaning up the stock market. By immediately issuing indictments against those who defrauded tens of thousands of innocent investors in the largest penny stock fraud in our nation's history, our criminal agencies can send a clear message to anyone who would attempt to manipulate our financial system with criminal intent.
Furthermore, the SEC and FINRA need to follow up on their earlier charges by taking clear and decisive action against not just the criminals themselves, but against anyone else who helped to perpetrate this massive fraud. While better regulations and stronger enforcement of existing laws might serve to deter some criminal activity, the only truly effective way to clean up our financial system is to enact swift and harsh punishment against the criminals themselves, whether they be at the corporate level, attorneys, accountants, transfer agents, brokers, market makers, clearing firms, or, as in the case of CMKX, all of the above. Put the criminals behind bars, or they will find ways to commit more crimes involving new victims.
New management in CMKM Diamonds, Inc. has taken strong action in their efforts to recoup money stolen from the company and its shareholders, but it should not be up to a handful of dedicated individuals to right this monumental wrong alone. While our government hands out hundreds of billions of dollars to bailout our major financial institutions, individual victims of financial fraud are left with little or no recourse whatsoever. The Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) is available to help those who lose their money when brokerage firms fail. What safeguards are in place to help those who have been victimized by fraud that could and should have been prevented had our federal regulators not been asleep at the wheel?
I respectfully request, in fact I'm pleading with anyone who has compassion for their fellow citizens, to join us in our fight for justice in this case. You, Mr. President, are in that position of power. Please make the call now. Instruct the DOJ/FBI/IRS Task Force to act immediately so that these criminals do not escape justice, and so that others will be protected from further fraud by this group of hardened criminals. The current management of CMKM Diamonds, Inc., and, I'm certain, many of the company's dedicated shareholders, are more than willing to assist you in any way possible.
If you are an elected official, do your duty and take the steps to right this wrong. If you are a member of the media, give this story the exposure it deserves. If you are a CMKX shareholder or simply a citizen concerned about justice for Main Street in a country that is in dire need of positive action against fraud and crime in our markets, forward this letter to everyone you know. Contact your elected officials, members of the press, anyone who might help us make this company an example of justice served instead of justice denied.
Sincerely,
Mark Faulk, CEO
CMKM Diamonds, Inc.
http://www.cmkmdiamondsinc.com/letter_index.html
Yup I would have to agree with that "If Marco settles with the SEC then we would have to wait until any criminal investigation enters discovery in order to see the depo then... Right? "
Either way this entire process will take years at this rate.
No Nufced! You are incorrect! Many of these so called stupid people are actually very smart individuals who simply had no control over the corruption that took place.
What you're saying is rediculous because if someone took money out of your bank account without your permission you would call the stupid because you picked that particular bank ?
Come on don't insult us ok!
No Janice its sad reality that the System is not SAFE!
If we have a ton of Value or not is irrelevant to the fact that this can take place and most likely will again.
Perhaps if we all form a single powerful voice and send something to Barack Obama ... this is why the USA is in such a position. Corruption manipulation and no one taking responsibility for it!
Janice the real question is not what type of stock you buy!
It is a known fact that all the levels of the stock market, banks, brokers, MM's, transfer agents, lawyers, you name it they have all failed because the reality is that Millions of dollars exchanged hands and are currently hidden away in various accounts.
Lets face it weather we had diamonds or gold and proved we had the resource it is not relevant to the fact that Thousands of shareholders have been scammed and no one is taking responsibility for this.
Someone needs to take responsibility for a system that didn't work!
U are so full of it! F*** is going to make meat sauce out of the lard that made it possible to put thousands of shareholders in this position.
For the latest MP3 url:
http://www.toginet.com/podcasts.php
or
http://www.sunshinemall.com (togi)
No CIM was a Zinc deposit, Carolyn was a Diamond find ;)
CashCow you're sitting on a gold mine lol
10 whole million CMKX shares at 0.02
Thats $200,000
CIM is real and they have a ZINC deposit.
The President and CEO of CMKM is Urban Casavant.
On July 19, 2004, CMKM announced that it had agreed to invest $1 million in a company called Casavant International Mining (CIM) – that Casavant name again. CMKM stated that, in return for its investment, it would receive “a 10% lifetime royalty on all mineral claims of CIM, specifically including the George Lake Zinc Deposit.” According to the press release, in addition to the royalty, CMKM will receive 40 billion shares of CIM stock, which will be distributed to CMKM shareholders.
According to the press release, the President of CIM is Ron Casavant and the Treasurer/Secretary is Dave Desormeau. While Mr. Desormeau does not share the Casavant name, both he and Ron Casavant have had prior relationships with CMKM. A Schedule 14c Information Statement filed with the SEC at the time of the reverse-merger (before the Company ceased to file reports) disclosed that Ron Casavant owned 30 million shares of CMKI common stock (the Casavant family, including Urban Casavant, owned a total of 770 million shares at that time – which was before the Company expanded its treasury to 500 billion shares); and that Dave Desormeau had been elected as a director of CMKM.
Got the link ?
Y pantherj "That's tough to do when you don't have the power to indict criminally. "
The whole system reeps of huwee! Its a SCAM!
No accountability from anyone!!!
This is what the DTC is doing (How sad!):
Jefferies
May 6, 2005
Via Fax and Overnight Majl
Ms. Anne Dansard Glowacki
NASD
Los Angeles District Office
One California Plaza
300 South Grand Avenue, Suite 1600
Los Angeles, CA 90071
RE: CMKX
Dear Anne:
This letter responds to your request to summarize circumstances surrounding Jefferies & Company, Inc.'s failure to report certain transactions in CMKX Diamonds Inc. ("CMKX") to the National Trade Reporting System (the "Tape") in 2004.
By way of background, the Automated Confirmation Transaction Service ("ACT") is an automated system which (a) compares trade information entered by ACT participants and submits "locked-in" trades to the National Securities Clearing Corporation ("NSCC") for clearance and settlement and (b) transmits reports of transactions automatically to the Tape. Under the NASD rules, a member firm and ACT participant may elect 10 clear transactions outside of ACT and NSCC and thereby settle transactions manually. In such cases, the member firm may utilize ACT for (b), trade reporting only (called 'Tape only") and not (a), NSCC clearance (called "Ex-Clearing"),
In March of 2004, two broker-dealer customers of Jefferies approached the firm requesting that transactions in CMKX be settled on an "Ex-Clearing basis". These broker-dealer customers where long sellers of CMKX. The reason for their request was economics: because CMKX traded in such large volumes and at such a low price, NSCC .required a significant deposit for long sellers of the security to ensure settlement. The cost of this deposit negatively impacted the broker-dealer's customers. Jefferies made a business and operational risk decision to allow a limited number of broker dealer customers who were long sellers of CMKX to settle the trades "Ex-Clearing", These Ex-Clearing transactions were monitored to ensure that the sellers properly delivered the securities and the trades settled on a timely basis. From a settlement perspective, these Ex-Clearing trades settled without incident and things went smoothly for a period of several months.
Unfortunately, unbeknownst to the firm, from a trade reporting perspective, these Ex-Clearing trades presented a problem. As you may know, there is a size limitation on ACT so that any single transaction of greater than 10 million shares automatically rejects on ACT. The firm had built a proprietary system so that any order greater than 10 million shares was submitted in component parts of less than 10 million shares first through BRASS (our front-end system)' and then to ACT for (a) clearing and (b) Tape reporting purposes (called "the Big Report*'). In short, the Big Report allowed trades of over 10 million shares to be accepted rather than rejected by ACT. However, when the firm's traders entered the "Ex-Clearing orders" they failed to enter the trades that were larger than 10 million shares on the Big Report. The traders mistakenly believed that since these trades were 'Ex-Clearing', the ACT limits would not affect their Tape reports. We now know that the Ex-Gearing trades over 10 million shares were rejected by ACT. While BRASS has a pop up system to alert the trade processing area that an order lias been rejected by ACT, the pop up must to activated by the member firm utilizing BRASS. The firm had not turned on this pop up feature during this time frame.
The firm would like to remedy this failure to report and would appreciate NASD's guidance. To develop the universe of trades which we believe the firm failed to report to the Tape, we ran a report that shows all the transactions of greater than 10 million shares that we executed on an Ex-Clearing basis during the period 3/25/04 (when the firm first began to process on an Ex-Clearing basis) through 9/21/04 (when the firm ceased to act as a market maker). Attached is a spreadsheet showing the transactions (a total of 111,780,681,204 shares) that we believe we failed to report to the Tape. (See spreadsheet, Exhibit A attached that shows the trade dates, execution time, buy or sell, symbol, quantity and price.) We would like to report these trades in a manner which is acceptable to you.
We have taken steps to prevent this problem from occurring in the future including procedures for approval to execute trades "Ex-Clearing" and if the decision is made to execute Ex-Clearing, procedures to ensure proper trade reporting to the Tape.
If you have any questions about this matter, please call me at 212-284-2586.
Sincerely,
Kathleen Shine Deputy General Counsel
Enclosure
CC: Leslie Hakala, Staff Attorney, Securities & Exchange Commission
This is what I don't understand,
why have the Entourage share not been distributed besides the fact that many of the claims have lapsed that is something they should deal with and its their problem for not checking in the first place!
Does it perhas have something to do with the fact that the NSS is so huge they don't know how to divide the shares ?
Perhaps doing so will show the world just how messed up the Stock market is and how the SEC is failing their primary function ?
CMKM Diamonds Appoints Mark Faulk as New CEO on September 11, 2008
He will Faulk with all these b*s*e*ds and using the media is a perfect way to get the right attention...
The guy has a bigger mouth then all the polititians combined I hope everyone is ready for this. Fun fun fun!
Very funny!
Sure we got Bonified Certs of which each share is owned by by a dozen people. That in itself is fraud.
How could the Transfer agent provide us with Certs that should not have been provided in the first place ?
Maybe the Transfer Agent should print off some more of these Certs!!! I'd like some more extra shares too.
This is so wrong!
How would you feel if you bought a brand you car and you had to share it with 10 other guys because they too have the key ?
This is BULLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Litigation Release No. 20855 / January 15, 2009
Securities and Exchange Commission v. Marco Glisson, Civil Action No. 2:09-cv-00104
SEC CHARGES LAS VEGAS MAN WITH MAKING A MARKET IN DEREGISTERED SECURITIES
The Securities and Exchange Commission ("Commission") announced today that it filed a civil injunctive action in the United States District Court of Nevada against Marco Glisson, a resident of Las Vegas, Nev., alleging that he illegally sold deregistered securities of CMKM Diamonds, Inc. On Oct. 28, 2005, CMKM's registration with the Commission was revoked. From December 2005 through April 2007, Glisson allegedly acted as an unregistered broker-dealer by purchasing and selling deregistered CMKM securities. Through this unlawful conduct, Glisson realized gross proceeds of at least $2 million.
According to the complaint, Glisson, a former auto worker and restaurant employee, identified potential buyers and sellers by frequenting CMKM related internet chat rooms and through referrals from past buyers and sellers. Glisson then negotiated the terms of the transaction and consummated it by exchanging money for the pertinent CMKM stock certificate. Through these practices, Glisson made a market in deregistered CMKM securities at a time when legitimate broker-dealers refused to execute such purchases or sales because of the Commission's deregistration of CMKM.
The Commission's complaint alleges that Glisson violated Sections 5(a) and 5(c) of the Securities Act and Section 15(a) of the Securities & Exchange Act. The Commission seeks a permanent injunction against Glisson prohibiting him from future violations of the relevant federal securities laws, disgorgement with prejudgment interest, civil penalties and an order prohibiting Glisson from participating in the offering of any penny stock.
SEC Complaint in this matter
1.7 trillion is plenty enough don't you agree ?
The best thing I've heard so far is how the SEC use to be under the impression that NSS is legal in front of a judge. ha ha ha
What a joke! Where was the SEC when Billions of transactions were taking place daily ?
MM's were sure glad to collect their money !
No Janice "I suppose it's easier for them to stick with their silly conspiracy theories than to accept the fact that they've been conned over and over again."
There are enough facts to support the fact that our system is so broken, if people who have an IQ of a security guard can get as far as UC did knowing or unknowing.
This should be of great concern.
Don't you agree?
Just think what a smart 12 year old kid could do to the stock market! Imagine someone actually tried to do damage!
I know ;)
Where is your humour ? ha ha ha
U.S. Pledges Top $7.7 Trillion to Ease Frozen Credit (Update2)
By Mark Pittman and Bob Ivry
Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. government is prepared to provide more than $7.76 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers after guaranteeing $306 billion of Citigroup Inc. debt yesterday. The pledges, amounting to half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, are intended to rescue the financial system after the credit markets seized up 15 months ago.
CMKX is guaranteed to receive $1 trillion of the American taxpayers money to aid in the biggest NSS. The primary intention is to compensate the thousands shareholders that have been provided with ilegally sold shares which the MM's provided to the various broakers that made millions in profits in fees for making these transactions possible. This rescue of the financial stock market is being provided to maintain stability that many frustrated shareholders are feeling due to the corruption that the SEC and other governing bodies are doing their best to cope with. So we all nod yes but say no.
The average shareholder will receive $16,666,666 which we feel is slightly undervalued but it is all the US can afford at this point in time.
The unprecedented pledge of funds includes $3.18 trillion already tapped by financial institutions in the biggest response to an economic emergency since the New Deal of the 1930s, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The commitment dwarfs the plan approved by lawmakers, the Treasury Department’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. Federal Reserve lending last week was 1,900 times the weekly average for the three years before the crisis.
When Congress approved the TARP on Oct. 3, Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson acknowledged the need for transparency and oversight. Now, as regulators commit far more money while refusing to disclose loan recipients or reveal the collateral they are taking in return, some Congress members are calling for the Fed to be reined in.
“Whether it’s lending or spending, it’s tax dollars that are going out the window and we end up holding collateral we don’t know anything about,” said Congressman Scott Garrett, a New Jersey Republican who serves on the House Financial Services Committee. “The time has come that we consider what sort of limitations we should be placing on the Fed so that authority returns to elected officials as opposed to appointed ones.”
Too Big to Fail
Bloomberg News tabulated data from the Fed, Treasury and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and interviewed regulatory officials, economists and academic researchers to gauge the full extent of the government’s rescue effort.
The bailout includes a Fed program to buy as much as $2.4 trillion in short-term notes, called commercial paper, that companies use to pay bills, begun Oct. 27, and $1.4 trillion from the FDIC to guarantee bank-to-bank loans, started Oct. 14.
William Poole, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, said the two programs are unlikely to lose money. The bigger risk comes from rescuing companies perceived as “too big to fail,” he said.
‘Credit Risk’
The government committed $29 billion to help engineer the takeover in March of Bear Stearns Cos. by New York-based JPMorgan Chase & Co. and $122.8 billion in addition to TARP allocations to bail out New York-based American International Group Inc., once the world’s largest insurer.
Citigroup received $306 billion of government guarantees for troubled mortgages and toxic assets. The Treasury Department also will inject $20 billion into the bank after its stock fell 60 percent last week.
“No question there is some credit risk there,” Poole said.
Congressman Darrell Issa, a California Republican on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said risk is lurking in the programs that Poole thinks are safe.
“The thing that people don’t understand is it’s not how likely that the exposure becomes a reality, but what if it does?” Issa said. “There’s no transparency to it so who’s to say they’re right?”
The worst financial crisis in two generations has erased $23 trillion, or 38 percent, of the value of the world’s companies and brought down three of the biggest Wall Street firms.
Markets Down
The Dow Jones Industrial Average through Friday is down 38 percent since the beginning of the year and 43 percent from its peak on Oct. 9, 2007. The S&P 500 fell 45 percent from the beginning of the year through Friday and 49 percent from its peak on Oct. 9, 2007. The Nikkei 225 Index has fallen 46 percent from the beginning of the year through Friday and 57 percent from its most recent peak of 18,261.98 on July 9, 2007. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is down 78 percent, to $53.31, on Friday from its peak of $247.92 on Oct. 31, 2007, and 75 percent this year.
Regulators hope the rescue will contain the damage and keep banks providing the credit that is the lifeblood of the U.S. economy.
Most of the spending programs are run out of the New York Fed, whose president, Timothy Geithner, is said to be President- elect Barack Obama’s choice to be Treasury Secretary.
‘They Got Snookered’
The money that’s been pledged is equivalent to $24,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. It’s nine times what the U.S. has spent so far on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Congressional Budget Office figures. It could pay off more than half the country’s mortgages.
“It’s unprecedented,” said Bob Eisenbeis, chief monetary economist at Vineland, New Jersey-based Cumberland Advisors Inc. and an economist for the Atlanta Fed for 10 years until January. “The backlash has begun already. Congress is taking a lot of hits from their constituents because they got snookered on the TARP big time. There’s a lot of supposedly smart people who look to be totally incompetent and it’s all going to fall on the taxpayer.”
President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s, when almost 10,000 banks failed and there was no mechanism to bolster them with cash, is the only rival to the government’s current response. The savings and loan bailout of the 1990s cost $209.5 billion in inflation-adjusted numbers, of which $173 billion came from taxpayers, according to a July 1996 report by the U.S. General Accounting Office, now called the Government Accountability Office.
‘Worst Crisis’
The 1979 U.S. government bailout of Chrysler consisted of bond guarantees, adjusted for inflation, of $4.2 billion, according to a Heritage Foundation report.
The commitment of public money is appropriate to the peril, said Ethan Harris, co-head of U.S. economic research at Barclays Capital Inc. and a former economist at the New York Fed. U.S. financial firms have taken writedowns and losses of $666.1 billion since the beginning of 2007, according to Bloomberg data.
“This is the worst capital markets crisis in modern history,” Harris said. “So you have the biggest intervention in modern history.”
Bloomberg has requested details of Fed lending under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and filed a federal lawsuit against the central bank Nov. 7 seeking to force disclosure of borrower banks and their collateral.
Collateral is an asset pledged to a lender in the event a loan payment isn’t made.
‘That’s Counterproductive’
“Some have asked us to reveal the names of the banks that are borrowing, how much they are borrowing, what collateral they are posting,” Bernanke said Nov. 18 to the House Financial Services Committee. “We think that’s counterproductive.”
The Fed should account for the collateral it takes in exchange for loans to banks, said Paul Kasriel, chief economist at Chicago-based Northern Trust Corp. and a former research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
“There is a lack of transparency here and, given that the Fed is taking on a huge amount of credit risk now, it would seem to me as a taxpayer there should be more transparency,” Kasriel said.
Bernanke’s Fed is responsible for $4.74 trillion of pledges, or 61 percent of the total commitment of $7.76 trillion, based on data compiled by Bloomberg concerning U.S. bailout steps started a year ago.
“Too often the public is focused on the wrong piece of that number, the $700 billion that Congress approved,” said J.D. Foster, a former staff member of the Council of Economic Advisers who is now a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. “The other areas are quite a bit larger.”
Fed Rescue Efforts
The Fed’s rescue attempts began last December with the creation of the Term Auction Facility to allow lending to dealers for collateral. After Bear Stearns’s collapse in March, the central bank started making direct loans to securities firms at the same discount rate it charges commercial banks, which take customer deposits.
In the three years before the crisis, such average weekly borrowing by banks was $48 million, according to the central bank. Last week it was $91.5 billion.
The failure of a second securities firm, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., in September, led to the creation of the Commercial Paper Funding Facility and the Money Market Investor Funding Facility, or MMIFF. The two programs, which have pledged $2.3 trillion, are designed to restore calm in the money markets, which deal in certificates of deposit, commercial paper and Treasury bills.
Lehman Failure
“Money markets seized up after Lehman failed,” said Neal Soss, chief economist at Credit Suisse Group in New York and a former aide to Fed chief Paul Volcker. “Lehman failing made a lot of subsequent actions necessary.”
The FDIC, chaired by Sheila Bair, is contributing 20 percent of total rescue commitments. The FDIC’s $1.4 trillion in guarantees will amount to a bank subsidy of as much as $54 billion over three years, or $18 billion a year, because borrowers will pay a lower interest rate than they would on the open market, according to Raghu Sundurum and Viral Acharya of New York University and the London Business School.
Congress and the Treasury have ponied up $892 billion in TARP and other funding, or 11.5 percent.
The Federal Housing Administration, overseen by Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Steven Preston, was given the authority to guarantee $300 billion of mortgages, or about 4 percent of the total commitment, with its Hope for Homeowners program, designed to keep distressed borrowers from foreclosure.
Federal Guarantees
Most of the federal guarantees reduce interest rates on loans to banks and securities firms, which would create a subsidy of at least $6.6 billion annually for the financial industry, according to data compiled by Bloomberg comparing rates charged by the Fed against market interest currently paid by banks.
Not included in the calculation of pledged funds is an FDIC proposal to prevent foreclosures by guaranteeing modifications on $444 billion in mortgages at an expected cost of $24.4 billion to be paid from the TARP, according to FDIC spokesman David Barr. The Treasury Department hasn’t approved the program.
Bernanke and Paulson, former chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs, have also promised as much as $200 billion to shore up nationalized mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a pledge that hasn’t been allocated to any agency. The FDIC arranged for $139 billion in loan guarantees for General Electric Co.’s finance unit.
Automakers Struggle
The tally doesn’t include money to General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC. Obama has said he favors financial assistance to keep them from collapse.
Paulson told the House Financial Services Committee Nov. 18 that the $250 billion already allocated to banks through the TARP is an investment, not an expenditure.
“I think it would be extraordinarily unusual if the government did not get that money back and more,” Paulson said.
In his Nov. 18 testimony, Bernanke told the House Financial Services Committee that the central bank wouldn’t lose money.
“We take collateral, we haircut it, it is a short-term loan, it is very safe, we have never lost a penny in these various lending programs,” he said.
A haircut refers to the practice of lending less money than the collateral’s current market value.
Requiring the Fed to disclose loan recipients might set off panic, said David Tobin, principal of New York-based loan-sale consultants and investment bank Mission Capital Advisors LLC.
‘Mark to Market’
“If you mark to market today, the banking system is bankrupt,” Tobin said. “So what do you do? You try to keep it going as best you can.”
“Mark to market” means adjusting the value of an asset, such as a mortgage-backed security, to reflect current prices.
Some of the bailout assistance could come from tax breaks in the future. The Treasury Department changed the tax code on Sept. 30 to allow banks to expand the deductions on the losses banks they were buying, according to Robert Willens, a former Lehman Brothers tax and accounting analyst who teaches at Columbia University Business School in New York.
Wells Fargo & Co., which is buying Charlotte, North Carolina-based Wachovia Corp., will be able to deduct $22 billion, Willens said. Adding in other banks, the code change will cost $29 billion, he said.
“The rule is now popularly known among tax lawyers as the ‘Wells Fargo Notice,’” Willens said.
The regulation was changed to make it easier for healthy banks to buy troubled ones, said Treasury Department spokesman Andrew DeSouza.
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said he was angry that banks used the money for acquisitions.
“The only purpose for this money is to lend,” said Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat. “It’s not for dividends, it’s not for purchases of new banks, it’s not for bonuses. There better be a showing of increased lending roughly in the amount of the capital infusions” or Congress may not approve the second half of the TARP money.
To contact the reporters on this story: Mark Pittman in New York at mpittman@bloomberg.net; Bob Ivry in New York at bivry@bloomberg.net.
You know we're in trouble when the the only news is the weather lol
Check out Obama's birth certificate ha ha ha
http://rense.com/general84/mdl.htm
Remember that its no rumour once Bush resigns all hell about any corruption is going to break loose!
Bush asked to keep things under raps till he resigns.
Here is the big one we have a writer Faulk, only time people like this were ever involved is when kings were making legends and people wrote about them.
So yes I do think this is bigger then all of us!
No!!!
CMKX engaged Stoecklein Law Group, because it was a firm specializing in securities matters. It used to assist CMKX in getting regulatory compliance as was even stated by Robert A. Maheu, co-chairman of CMKX. Had Maheu known what was going on internally he would have certainly had better things to do then drag his name through the mud!
Don't you think ?
Roger Glenn and his firm was to assist CMKX and perhaps it is possible that UC at the time the CEO/president of CMKX also had no idea what he was signing just as long as he was getting a ton of money. Although ignorance is no excuse.
Because of the Stocklein Law Group the requirements were met and CMKX was reinstated, allowing them to file current, quarterly and annual reports with the SEC disclosing vital corporate information to the investing public and its stockholders.
Stoecklein Law Group then Subpoena all CMKX Trade records from April 2003-Appril 2005 from the DTCC On April 28,2005.
They Request All Documents be Delivered to Stoecklein Law Group By May 6,2005. The Subpoena clearly spoke of all Transactions Electronically Done during the 2 Year Time Frame. Which was to prove NSS ( Naked Short Selling ) of CMKX Shares electronically. Although the DTCC did not produce all Documents relatiing to all CMKX Electronic Share Transactions during april 2003- april 2005.
Why did they refuse ? We all wanted to see them ?
Something was shady don't you think ?
Secondly Etrade has made it harder to pull CMKX Certificates.
Same TDW, in fact they said if you get a CMKX Certificate we won't accept it back and to this day they won't! Why ?
ETRADE Charged $40 for each 9,999,999 Stock Certificate of CMKX. If you owned 40 Million shares you have to pay $160.00 to get your shares.
I got ripped off the same way and TDW has lied to me as well telling me it is not possible to obtain a Certificate of greater value then 9,999,999. Only after speaking with several supervisors were they able to provide me with ones close to a billion shares.
Why would the brokers make it so difficult to obtian Physical Stock certificates ? Why would they Lie to thousands of customers ? Why would the brokers in fact offer you the following ....
This is what I have heard them tell me and many individuals.
"Oh CMKX Oh giggling in the background
Well we can offer you a nice option
They said ... why don't we make this easy on you those shares are useless we can just wipe them off from your account and all you have to do is agree to us doing so over the phone and we'll record that this is what you want ?"
I'm not joking these B**rds lied and lied why ?
A lot of us have made this personal to get to the bottom of this and till we do or till we get PAID $$$$$$$$ this thing is going to go on for year!!!!!!!!!!! I'm not joking!
One last thing to think about!!!
Dateline was to air something on CMKX and NSS but it was pulled! (Why ?)
You think this is the end of the whole story...
CityTV had a visit from the Canadian Military confescading all sorts of tapes ? Why ? All same timing.
What was on these tapes, whey did it have to involve the military ?
Ask around and you'll start to see a patern.
There are a lot of people who know more then they are sharing and when you put enough of the pieces together something fit!
Yes we know shares were sold to the public that have not been authorized. How deep does this go ?
Billions of shares and no one gives a D*M ?
Smells like fear ?
Looks like you beat me to the punch line.
Its clear everyone on here agrees that the SEC needs a new department / ARM of the law that can deal with cases involving large sums of fraud, large number of investors and who can get every penny back.
They should have the authority to collect anything from these crooks like house, bank accounts, valuables, cars, and if they can't return the money they stole take it as collater!
Does this sound like the SEC is collecting ?
The SEC is a JOKE!
Let me get this straight he collected $9 million and is returnig $3 million and ~$100K fine lol
So in fact he kept $6 million
We need a new Legal SEC-ARM almost like a SWAT team with powers that can charge and collect when corruption like this takes place. Put them in Jail or pay up returning every penny.
The stock market is in trouble!
If the stock market was so perfect we would have an organization as the SEC.
Although it does concern me that winning doesn't mean anything.
The amount of money collected does not compensate the investor, making millions on billions of shares should have raised some concerns in the media but NOTHING!
Its almost acceptible to do this!
Then we have the SEC who sits on these won cases and the money is still in LIMBO!!!!!!!! They simply SIT on our money and make it appear like they are in fact so busy but the reality is that many of these cases have been resolved a long time ago.
Its all just one bunch of Crooks! They appear to want to help us on the outside but on the inside its a different world.
Its disgusting that none of the governing bodies are cleaning up house. Why ?
No the SEC never warned us cause they had no clue.
You know Urbie for 20 years ?
I guess you must be very close :)
I've known of Urbie since 2001, thats 8 years and nothing indicated that he would do anything like this.
Money causes Greed! Seems like its all related to Gambling, but if someone like Urbie can do this much damage involve all sorts of bank money transactions, making Billions of CMKX shares public (SEC had no clue), MM's transferring Billions of shares daily (SEC had no clue), the list is so huge it makes you wonder what kind of poeople we have working and overlooking the stock markets.
Oh please you know you like it ;)
Why else would you have bought CMKX shares ?
Did you know that...
25%(+%11.5) GEMM - Juina Mining (Nov.18/04 95Mil shares+ Nov.30 127Mil shares) Of which: Diagem is 49% owned by GEMM - super rich copper vein
So yes it relates back to CMKX and its value!
Did you know: Diagem NEWs!
October 10, 2008 TSX Venture Exchange - DGE
Formerly (DGM)
Montréal, Québec No. 12
Diagem Ceases Activities in Brazil until IBAMA Embargo is Resolved
The Board of Directors of Diagem Inc. (“Diagem” or “the Company”) have decided to cease its Juina-based exploration and development activities until the embargo placed on its Chapadao Project by the Brazilian Federal Environmental Agency (“IBAMA”) can be successfully resolved. The Company is pursuing discussions with various parties with a view to the possible disposition of some or all of its mineral properties, processing plants, and equipment.
About Diagem
Diagem Inc. is an exploration-stage Canadian public company focused on primary diamondiferous resources in the Juína Diamond Province of Mato Grosso, Brazil, where it controls a large portfolio of mineral properties. The Company has discovered two clusters of kimberlite pipes believed to be significant sources of Juína’s historical alluvial diamond production.
Forward-looking statements
Except for statements of historical fact, all statements in this news release, without limitation, regarding new projects, acquisitions, future plans and objectives are forward-looking statements which involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate; actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements.
http://www.diagem.com/en/1024/1123.php