A recognized man guilty in mortgage fraud to be sentenced (AP)

Alexandria, Virginia - a recognized man guilty of masterminding fraud of $ 3 billion, as the President of one of the largest mortgage private American companies will be sentenced to prison.

Federal prosecutors in the Northern Virginia seek life imprisonment for Lee. B. Farkas, former President of the Florida Taylor Bean & Whitaker oriented. They call the case against him one of the most important of the financial collapse of the country.

A federal jury in Alexandria, Virginia, Farkas guilty of all the heads of 14 charges, including conspiracy and securities fraud in April.

Farkas said that he had in fact nothing wrong.

Farkas, Ocala, Florida, is the last of the seven employees and executives to Taylor Bean and Colonial Bank to be sentenced. Taylor Bean collapsed in 2009, when the scheme unraveled, turn off 2,000 employees work.

Invest British Columbia Colombia fraud leads to record 47 million fine (the globe and mail)

Published on 15 December 2010 5 H 27 ESTLast updated 15 December 2010 5 H 39 EST6 comments

British Columbia Colombia investment dealer that target members of a Korean religious community in the province ordered to pay penalties for a total of $ 47 million after a British Columbia Securities Commission Panel ruled that it has committed fraud.

The Commission said Kim Sung Wan (Sean) raised $ 15.7 million 36 investors and has not invested their money in futures and options contracts as promised. Instead of this, most of the money went into his personal bank account, and none was recovered for investors.

"Kim to steal money from investors," the panel hearing BCSC stated in a decision published Wednesday. "He lied about how their funds would be invested and the benefits that they could win."

Sentencing is a record amount for a case of the Commission, stated the Director of the enforcement Lang Evans. But whereas the commission will be "aggressive" try to seize assets to enforce the latter judgment, Mr Evans said that it was unlikely that much can be retrieved to pay the fine.

This is because that most investors ' money has been transferred abroad, until the Commission can freeze accounts, and because Mr. Kim is now in jail in Korea South. He was arrested he after fleeing the Canada and was recently recognized British Colombia fraud guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison. It appeals from conviction.

"This is an outrageous this individual fraud", Mr. Evans said in an interview Wednesday. "And it is a tragic story."

Victims by Mr. Kim came from the Evangelical Church of Korean Foursquare in Vancouver, most of them holding dual nationality Canadian-Korean. Mr. Kim promised yields ranging from 26% to 60% per year on their investments.

In his fraud, he also forged supposed to come from the Commission saying falsely commission monitoring of its business, the Cirplus assistance letters. He also prepared false statements showing the profits earned by the investors.

"All these statements were false," said the Commission. "The investors have received no feedback and each of them have lost their main".

Most investors gave Mr. Kim hundreds of thousands of dollars, and one testified at the hearing, it has invested $ 1.4 million and is now mostly bankrupt.

Commission said that it was not attenuating the case and the Panel has decided that it was appropriate to require by Mr. Kim from "deprive" 15.7 million collected from investors and pay an administrative penalty equal to twice the amount he took his victims or 31.4 million.

Also permanently, it is prohibited to act as Director or officer of a public company or work in the investment industry in the province.

Acts of Congress stop fake caller ID fraud (CBS News)

(AP)  Congress moved Wednesday stop scammers who use fake caller IDs to deceive people by revealing social security numbers of card credit and other essential information.

House lawmakers try to finish the work of the year has also adopted a second consumer protection law that would crack down on vendors of third parties attacking people during the online purchase transactions.

Previously, the Senate passed two bills and votes in the Assembly send them to Barack Obama President for his signature.

Invoice ID calling, sponsored by representatives Eliot Engel, D - N.y., and Joe Barton, R - Tex, the question of the ?spoofing addresses of ? where scammers use the ID of the caller, for example, a bank or a Government to deceive people by providing private information Office.

Engel cited a case where the New York City police discovered an identity theft ring that uses the ID caller spoofing steal $ 6,000 victims more than 15 million last year. In another case, a SWAT team has closed a neighbourhood of New Brunswick, New Jersey, after receiving a call with an ID of fake calling someone in distress.

Rep Tim Murphy, R-in Pennsylvania, said that he was a spy phone that constituents bombarded by calls that reveals his Office.

The draft law applies to persons who use IDs of the appellant, the number appearing on the phone of the person who receives the call, to defraud or harm unfairly obtain something of value.

Exceptions are made for the application of the law or who need to hide or change the IDs of the activities of intelligence or organizations such as the centres of violence home change numbers to protect the occupants of a shelter.

The Bill authorizes civil penalties of up to $10,000 for each offence, until a total of 1 million dollars for every single act.

Online purchasing protection Act deals with a practice where third-party vendors interrupt online transaction process and try to register consumers as clients or members of the club. Consumers may not realize that they are dealing with another company and they can register for membership for which they are then responsible for recurring monthly fees.

Senator John d. Rockefeller, Trade Committee President and promoter of the Bill, said well-known, trustworthy sites are hundreds of millions of dollars by passing on information of their customers, including credit and debit card numbers, billing to these third party vendors.

He said a one-year investigation by its Committee revealed that these costs unauthorized third-party vendors have already cost consumers more than 1 billion.

Bill would require the post-transaction advertisers disclose the terms of their offers and information billing directly to consumers. Prohibit Internet retailers to transfer information from billing to third-party vendors and cracking down on use of ?negative options? where consumers are charged monthly until they communicate with vendor third to cancel their membership fees.

? MMX, the Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Mark Madoff and burden of fraud (Wall Street Journal)

Mark both Andrew Madoff had difficulty to live with their father Bernard Madoff fraud burden. But mark, the older of the two seems to have a more difficult to find a way to move people to come, said familiar with men.

He often asks people how a father could do this to his sons, noted a friend.

Apparent suicide of Mark Madoff Saturday morning at the age of 46 years old and on the second anniversary of his father's arrest is stark display how long decades Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme revelation tore Mr. Madoff family.

Associated Press featured this undated photograph provided by Security Traders Association of New York, Mark Madoff.

The said child two years Mr. Madoff and the dog law enforcement officials were only for a certain period of time Saturday morning until what father-in-law Mr. Madoff came to his apartment in Manhattan Soho area. He contacted said responsible for law enforcement.

Earlier this week, a spokesman for the son said "mark remain unalterably bitter disappointment to his father and his father caused injury.

Both brothers, as well as their uncle Peter Madoff have been in the criminal investigation over the past months, said people familiar with the matter. Officials say that they had no knowledge of the fraud.

Mark Madoff had the legal case Madoff on the Internet and was "terrified" with reports that he was part of the fraud and that investigators were still him in funding Ponzi his father, a person who had spoken with him recently said.

Andrew Madoff, a survivor of lymphoma, started cycling more than 100 miles per week and working with his girlfriend in his company of expert Council, Mark Madoff in time spent calling on old contact Wall street trade days last year. It has tested the waters for a job, but there are no takers. He recently turned his attention to work on iPads requests, a friend pointed out at the beginning of this week.

Neither son spoke with their parents for two years, said a person familiar with the matter.

Mark Madoff was raised in the suburbs of New York in Roslyn, New York State and in 1986, went directly from the University of Michigan, to work for his father Bernard l. Madoff Investment Securities. The company was one of dozens of family deals with shops that grew up around the award in New York and Nasdaq Stock Market, and it has survived the years 1990 and at the beginning of 2000 years while others close or have been sold to electronic competitors more agile.

In the 1990s and 2000s, Mark Madoff has led commercial offices for the company, oversees dozens of young men and women dealing with major banks traders and fund companies.

Called sociable and confident, Mark Madoff often left with business colleagues and hit the circuit conferences where merchants met to discuss how stocks are bought and sold. As he worked alongside his brother, mark became known as the easier of the two talks, that Andrew was further, more introverted and some say more concerned about the book.

Mark was considered to be more involved in the business of the 2000s. After Andrew argued with lymphoma, he has developed broader interests, in collaboration with the Foundation is dedicated to lymphoma.

In 2000, Mark Madoff was placed at the head of the trade for the New York Stock Exchange-listed stocks Madoff.

Response to a critical about the Madoff in 2001 by Barron, company which raises questions about whether article if the secret investment operation has been legitimately generation returns, Mark Madoff, with Andrew watch close, addressed to dozens of merchants of the Madoff in offices of the enterprise, supporting strongly article was erroneous, and that Madoff investment operation was legitimate according to the people who were there.

The two companies - commercial company where Mark Madoff has worked and Bernard Madoff - separate usually employees kept fraudulent investment company, the old firm say.

Mark Madoff married his first wife, Susan, in 1989. They had two children, and they divorced on a decade later. They moved in a House of 1.6 million dollars in Greenwich, Conn., in 1994, according to public records. Saturday morning the ex-wife, Susan Elkin, has refused to discuss what is reached.

He placed in the city and its current building on Mercer Street in 2005, where he lived with his second wife Stephanie Morgan, whom he married in 2003.

In addition to their apartment in Manhattan, they bought a house in Nantucket, Massachusetts to 6.5 million in the middle of 2008. It is currently for sale, according to a person familiar with finance, Mark Madoff.

"Seems to me to mark them as a friend, and I found the new totally outrageous character and horrible day, said John Giesea, Chief Executive of the Association of traders of security, where Mark Madoff formerly served as Governor and Chairman of the subsidiary New York business group."

"He was among the best in the structure of the market understanding," added Mr. Giesea. The two often met at a coffee shop on Lexington Avenue in the years prior to arrest of Bernard Madoff to talk about markets and technology.

More recently, spoke of what Mark Madoff would then be both professionally after that apparently successful career was suddenly arrested by confession and arrest of his father.

One of the ideas of Mr. Madoff, according to Mr. Giesea: an application that will bring information iPads or other digital devices based on professional interests a person custom. Mr. Giesea said Mark Madoff was for Office space in Manhattan in recent months and to launch the idea of various potential partners.

"It was a young man who was intelligent and articulate and confident, without being arrogant," said Mr. Giesea.

Mr. Giesea and his wife repeatedly met Mark Madoff and his wife, Stephanie. For a dinner in 2003, mark and Stephanie Madoff discusses their upcoming marriage of Nantucket, including plans to travel Harlem Boys Choir in of singing "Where is the love?" a Black Eyed Peas hit was one of the Favorites of Mark Madoff.

Law enforcement officials said Saturday father-in-law Mark Madoff had visited his apartment at the request of Ms. Morgan, who was in Florida. Police say she and her husband were email back and forth begins around 4 o'clock in the morning and then a few hours later Mr. Madoff told to have someone check on their children and indicated that he would kill himself.

-Sean Gardiner and Michael Rothfeld contributed to this article