British high-flyer held in $430m US fraud inquiry

[lovuian]

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/redir.php?jid=faf48f648ee0b1d2&cat=c08dd24cec417021

British high-flyer held in $430m US fraud inquiry
By Katherine Griffiths
Published: 15 October 2005
Until this week, Phillip Bennett was a striking Wall Street success story. A Briton who graduated from Cambridge University, he had risen to the top of New York's multibillion-dollar futures trading market, and owned a Park Avenue penthouse, a mansion in New Jersey and a fortune worth almost $2bn. In Manhattan business circles, he was nicknamed "The Closer".

That was before the 57-year-old chief executive of Refco, one of the world's biggest futures brokers, became the central figure in one of the most spectacular financial scandals to hit New York since Enron. He faces a 20-year prison sentence and Refco stands on the brink of bankruptcy

Mr Bennett is accused of orchestrating the type of complex fraud which another Briton, Nick Leeson, was found guilty of in 1995, and which brought down Barings Bank. In a dramatic statement that appalled New York's business classes, Refco announced on Monday that its chief executive owed it $430m and admitted that company statements dating back to 2002 could not be trusted.

Refco is one of the largest commodities and derivatives traders in New York, London, Paris and Asia. Investors are queuing up with lawsuits alleging they have been grossly misled about the state of its finances.

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Isn't anybody watching these things like the SEC and the Banks??? and Sarbanes Oxley???

[Gronk Groks]

1. Statements dating back to 2002 could not be trusted...

...it sounds like it happened entirely on shrub's watch...
...can't blame Clinton...
...but they'll try...