Feds arrest, charge CEO of Iowa-based brokerage firm that is missing $200M in customer funds

IOWA CITY, Iowa - The chief executive officer of an Iowa-based brokerage firm admitted in a suicide note to carrying out an elaborate fraud scheme in which he embezzled more than $100 million from customers over nearly two decades, federal investigators said Friday.

FBI agents arrested Russell Wasendorf, Sr., 64, of Cedar Falls on Friday. Federal prosecutors unsealed a criminal complaint charging the CEO of Peregrine Financial Group, Inc., with making false statements to regulators and released documents detailing a wide-ranging fraud scheme that apparently fooled colleagues, customers and regulators for years.

news.yahoo.com...

I've never read such a comprehensive confession to financial crimes in all of my life. I wanted to share this with everyone so that it can be seen how easy it is to come clean.

I guess this guy learned that suicide is hard, but now he gets to live.

Now that he admitted he did it and how will we ever find out on what did he spend all of the money and why?

I'd bet an honest answer to that question would be worth $200 Million to hear it.

That's great but I hope they don't think they are DONE.

It's something though.

reply to post by hadriana


but people will increasingly continue to lose their wits as their black box investments continue to pay no return, write confessions and attempt suicides or to flee.

that makes finding them all a lot easier.

And yet Obama's top Wall Street fundraiser, Jon Corzine, is still walking around free. What's wrong with this picture?

reply to post by jcarpenter


off the top my head...he didn't write a confession detailing any crime he could be accused of and then fail to kill himself from guilt. also his tenure at MF Global was not long enough that he should take the fall for something that was obviously already in the works when he joined 19 months before its collapse.

he'd probably tell anyone that had anything to say about MF Global to FO for trying to pin your crap on me.

this guy has been doing his thing for 20 years.

$200 million.I'd guess he has a few unknown accounts.Switzerland,Caymans anyone's guess but that loot is still out there,somewhere.

Iowa. Iowa is quite centrally located, might be a good place for a trade hub instead of Denver.

goo.gl...

You see if we put one in Scranton PA, and one in Stockton CA, then Iowa would be a good spot for a center hub.

But they have had all this voting fraud and scandal business. Let me see what else has been in the news...

Well it certainly looks like middle America and this project is targeting the middle class so I would say Iowa is a better case of need vs opportunity than Denver and Denver is close to Stockton.

So probably this thread is a flare so that we will consider making Iowa a trade hub. And America will only get a few.
But Alaska should get one since otherwise they would be left out and there is enough commerce there to support one, and if we need to scale down the facilities we could spend some of the money on docks or dock improvement. Thats the only exception to the 5 billion dollar hub sites, that they have to support a facility of that size, which is about the size of Singapore Airport.

So to make one smaller, would mean that we have issues globally regarding fairness. So thats the only small option, is like where they also do harbor improvement for shipping.

Otherwise its gotta look like thiS!
www.xjgj.com...

and this...
www.xjgj.com...

for Internet.

Better just have a gander at Alaska too...
goo.gl...

Well I don't think at this point I can justify it. If there was rail service down the coast then maybe.
Hard to say. Raw materials are good but I just don't think it can support a hub of this magnitude.
Not enough people, not enough commerce, Which is a shame but maybe someday.
Maybe they can get a node from Vancouver's hub. That would do I am sure.

Originally posted by michaelbrux

off the top my head...he didn't write a confession detailing any crime he could be accused of and then fail to kill himself from guilt.

If I recall correctly, Corzine documented *his* decision to co-mingle and transfer money in a memo that has been unearthed.

reply to post by jcarpenter


that's what Wikipedia is saying as well. it seems clear this was done to protect the company, not temporarily enrich himself; do you want to slap him on the wrist or just wait for a Judge to do it because that's all that's gonna happen?

...either way it looks like he was set up by people who knew more about the company's operations than he did and what everyone is actually mad about is that he's not gonna be their fall guy.

reply to post by AgentX09


or maybe he sent it to the underworld, but its out of his reach now because the CO from his hybrid isn't as potent as the CO from auto that runs only on gasoline.

reply to post by jcarpenter


I wonder that myself. Aside from the dismissive post below yours here are my theories.

Corzine is a "Made Man" in both politics and banksterdom they don't prosecute banksters, only rarely prosecute politicians, and never prosecute both.

Corzine has dirt on powerful people. As a money man for Obama, there was at one time speculation he would replace Giethner as Sec Treasury, he could probably bring the President down if by some chance AG Holder were inclined to prosecute.

A prosecution of Corzine could lead directly to JPMorgan. Most of the missing money somehow ended up at JPM and was only released by an order from the bankruptcy judge.

The cases are similar in that supposedly segregated money was missing. PFG Best however was an order of magnitudes smaller without the high profile Crooked Executive Officer. I expect this to actually be prosecuted, not because this guy is less of a crook than those at MFG, but because they do not have to prosecute one of their own.

reply to post by jefwane


my post was hardly dismissive...just because both issues are financial doesn't mean they can be compared.

at PFG, the CEO was in sole control of the bank statements and customer funds and the sole shareholder of the company and had been doing this for the last 20 years.

Corzine came into a crime scene and for some reason accepted the job.