DOJ: Current and Former Precious Metals Traders Charged with Multi-Year Market Manipulation Racketeering Conspiracy

SPOOF!

Buy Gold..... on second thought....

Three J.P. Morgan precious metals traders charged as criminal probe continues

Two current precious metals traders and one former trader in the New York offices of a U.S. bank (Bank A) were charged in an indictment unsealed today for their alleged participation in a racketeering conspiracy and other federal crimes in connection with the manipulation of the markets for precious metals futures contracts, which spanned over eight years and involved thousands of unlawful trading sequences.

Charged in the indictment are:

• Gregg Smith, 55, of Scarsdale, New York.  Smith was an executive director and trader on Bank A’s precious metals desk in New York.  He joined Bank A in May 2008 after it acquired another U.S. bank (Bank B).
• Michael Nowak, 45, of Montclair, New Jersey.  Nowak was a managing director and ran Bank A’s global precious metals desk.  He joined Bank A in July 1996.
• Christopher Jordan, 47, of Mountainside, New Jersey.  Jordan joined Bank A in March 2006 and was an executive director and trader on Bank A’s precious metals desk in New York.  Jordan left Bank A in December 2009 and worked as a precious metals trader at a Swiss bank (Bank C) in New York from March 2010 until August 2010.  From June 2011 until October 2011, Jordan traded precious metals futures contracts as an employee of a financial service company (Company D) in New York.

“The defendants and others allegedly engaged in a massive, multiyear scheme to manipulate the market for precious metals futures contracts and defraud market participants,” said Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski.  “These charges should leave no doubt that the Department is committed to prosecuting those who undermine the investing public’s trust in the integrity of our commodities markets.”

“Smith, Nowak, Jordan, and their co-conspirators allegedly engaged in a complex scheme to trade precious metals in a way that negatively affected the natural balance of supply-and-demand,” said FBI Assistant Director in Charge William F. Sweeney Jr. of the FBI’s New York Field Office. “Not only did their alleged behavior affect the markets for precious metals, but also correlated markets and the clients of the bank they represented. For as long as we continue to see this type of illegal activity in the marketplace, we’ll remain dedicated to investigating and bringing to justice those who perpetrate these crimes.”  

Each of the three defendants was charged with one count of conspiracy to conduct the affairs of an enterprise involved in interstate or foreign commerce through a pattern of racketeering activity (more commonly referred to as RICO conspiracy); one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud affecting a financial institution, bank fraud, commodities fraud, price manipulation and spoofing; one count of bank fraud and one count of wire fraud affecting a financial institution.  In addition, Smith and Nowak were each charged with one count of attempted price manipulation, one count of commodities fraud and one count of spoofing.

Smith is expected to make an initial appearance in the Southern District of New York before U.S. Magistrate Judge Judith C. McCarthy, and Nowak and Jordan are expected to make their initial appearances in the District of New Jersey before U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael A. Hammer.  The case was indicted in the Northern District of Illinois and has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Edmond E. Chang.

As alleged in the indictment, between approximately May 2008 and August 2016, the defendants and their co-conspirators were members of Bank A’s global precious metals trading desk in New York, London and Singapore with varying degrees of seniority and supervisory responsibility over others on the desk.  As it relates to the RICO conspiracy, the defendants and their co-conspirators were allegedly members of an enterprise—namely, the precious metals desk at Bank A—and conducted the affairs of the desk through a pattern of racketeering activity, specifically, wire fraud affecting a financial institution and bank fraud.

The indictment alleges that the defendants engaged in widespread spoofing, market manipulation and fraud while working on the precious metals desk at Bank A through the placement of orders they intended to cancel before execution (Deceptive Orders) in an effort to create liquidity and drive prices toward orders they wanted to execute on the opposite side of the market.  In thousands of sequences, the defendants and their co-conspirators allegedly placed Deceptive Orders for gold, silver, platinum and palladium futures contracts traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange Inc. (NYMEX) and Commodity Exchange Inc. (COMEX), which are commodities exchanges operated by CME Group Inc.  By placing Deceptive Orders, the defendants and their co-conspirators allegedly intended to inject false and misleading information about the genuine supply and demand for precious metals futures contracts into the markets, and to deceive other participants in those markets into believing something untrue, namely that the visible order book accurately reflected market-based forces of supply and demand.  This false and misleading information was intended to, and at times did, trick other market participants into reacting to the apparent change and imbalance in supply and demand by buying and selling precious metals futures contracts at quantities, prices and times that they otherwise likely would not have traded, the indictment alleges.

As also alleged in the indictment, the defendants and their co-conspirators defrauded Bank A’s clients who had bought or sold “barrier options” by trading precious metals futures contracts in a manner that attempted to push the price towards a price level at which Bank A would make money on the option (barrier-running), or away from a price level at which Bank A would lose money on the option (barrier-defending).  Namely, when barrier-running, the defendants and their co-conspirators would allegedly place orders for precious metals futures contracts in a way that was intended to deliberately trigger the barrier option held by Bank A.  Conversely, when barrier-defending, the defendants and their co-conspirators would allegedly place orders for precious metals futures contracts in a way that was intended to deliberately avoid triggering the barrier option held by clients of Bank A.

The indictment also identifies two former Bank A precious metals traders, John Edmonds and Christian Trunz, as being among the defendant’s co-conspirators.  Edmonds worked at Bank A from 2004 to 2017 and was a trader on Bank A’s precious metals desk, leaving as a vice president.  On Oct. 9, 2018, Edmonds pleaded guilty in the District of Connecticut to an information charging him with one count of commodities fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, commodities fraud, price manipulation and spoofing.  Trunz is a former precious metals trader at Bank A who worked at the bank from 2007 to August 20, 2019, leaving as an executive director.  On Aug. 20, 2019, Trunz pleaded guilty in the Eastern District of New York to an information charging him with one count of conspiracy to engage in spoofing and one count of spoofing.

This case is the result of an ongoing investigation by the FBI’s New York Field Office. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Division of Enforcement provided assistance in this case.  Trial Attorneys Avi Perry and Matthew F. Sullivan of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section are prosecuting the case.

The charges in the indictment are merely allegations, and the defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Individuals who believe that they may be a victim in these cases should visit the Fraud Section’s Victim Witness website for more information at https://www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/victim-witness-program.

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

The Death Of Tony Rodham Is Announced - No Word On Where All The Haitian Gold Went

It was announced on Twitter by his sister, Hillary Clinton, that Tony Rodham has died.

There has yet to be a pronouncement of date, time, place and manner of death, but that is a family matter.

We lost my brother Tony last night. It’s hard to find words, my mind is flooded with memories of him today. When he walked into a room he’d light it up with laughter. He was kind, generous, & a wonderful husband to Megan & father to Zach, Simon, & Fiona. We’ll miss him very much.

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 8, 2019

Perhaps, she is talking to him as we watch Bill, her husband, share with us of Hillary's ability to communicate with the dead, like Elenore Roosevelt, to figure out what to do with his Haitian gold mines and slave labor operations legacy.

Perhaps, the gold could be found and given back to the children of Haiti because you know the profits were laundered through some child welfare NGOs into children's trusts.

Bush Clinton Haiti Fund

http://gulfcoastfunds.com/managementteam/

EB-5

Haiti: How Bill and Hillary Clinton Wrecked an Entire Country

Teflon Tony Rodham, the Clintons’ Shady Id

Who Is Tony Rodham, Hillary Clinton's Brother? His Forays Into Politics Haven't Quite Worked Out

Hillary's brother raised Chinese money for McAuliffe's green car venture

Tony Rodham, Terry McAuliffe and some dude.

With his sister serving as secretary of state, Tony Rodham, the brother of likely Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton, became a kind of traveling salesman in China for a politically connected green car company that was building a factory in a distressed corner of Mississippi.

“When I first got involved, Tony was taking part in jaunts to China, and they would do presentations. Somebody in China did recruiting and found people who were interested and could qualify,” said former Gov. Kathleen Blanco (D-La.), who until December sat on the board of Rodham’s Gulf Coast Funds Management, a company criticized this week for using political pressure to try to speed up a federal agency’s approval of visas.

Blanco told POLITICO that while Rodham was listed as president and CEO, he appeared to have little day-to-day involvement in the firm. His principal role was recruiting investors for Gulf Coast’s main client, GreenTech Automotive, a start-up automotive company linked to Terry McAuliffe, now Virginia’s governor. Both Gulf Coast and GreenTech are owned by Virginia businessman Xiaolin Charles Wang, who brought on partners with deep Democratic Party political connections as he tried to get the business going.

Blanco said both she and former IRS Commissioner Margaret Richardson left Gulf Coast’s board in December. The ex-governor also said she believed the firm was no longer actively recruiting investors.

“I think the company fulfilled its mission. Our goal was to raise money that was supposed to be used to create jobs in Mississippi and Louisiana. That was our obligation,” Blanco said.

Rodham, who did not respond to messages and emails sent to the firms, has said nothing publicly about an inspector general report issued this week that offers a detailed account of pressure exerted on a Department of Homeland Security official to try to speed up review of visa requests. The report says that both Rodham and McAuliffe contacted U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Alejandro Mayorkas for help and that agency employees believed the men were getting preferential treatment because of their political ties.

McAuliffe defended his actions Thursday on a radio talk show, saying the delays were inexplicable and his company needed answers.

Federal authorities have been examining the dealings of Rodham’s investment company for at least two years,beginning their inquiries months before McAuliffe launched a campaign for Virginia governor.

The Securities and Exchange Commission had an “ongoing … investigation” into Gulf Coast in 2013, according to documents released by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa.) The records showed that the SEC subpoenaed records from a bank for Gulf Coast. GreenTech confirmed in September 2013 that it, too, received an SEC subpoena and said the firm was cooperating with the inquiry.

Gulf Coast’s only known investment is in GreenTech. Gulf Coast sought money from overseas investors through a federal government program that allowed wealthy foreigners to obtain green cards by investing in American businesses. Rodham’s investment company was part of a federal program that encourages foreign investors to front up $500,000 to fund American businesses, and to pay roughly $55,000 to obtain a U.S. green card.

In an SEC filing last year, GreenTech said it had raised $47 million in private equity investments of at least half a million dollars apiece and was looking to raise a total of $60 million. The filing did not say how much of the money came from foreign investors seeking U.S. residency through the so-called EB-5 visa program.

While Mayorkas said he’d not heard of McAuliffe before their interactions, fraud detection officials at USCIS were well aware of the political ties of Gulf Coast’s president and CEO, Rodham.

“The Principal Administrator is the brother to current secretary of state and former First Lady of the United States Hillary Rodham Clinton,” an unnamed USCIS official wrote in an internal memo that was released by Grassley and appears to date from after Clinton’s departure from the Cabinet in 2013.

Until recently, the address listed for Gulf Coast Funds on its website was for an eighth-floor suite in a Tyson’s Corner building right next to the Ritz Carlton. The suite — on the same floor as offices for Turkish Airlines and Condur Company LLC — is now completely empty. The building also houses several financial companies like Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and Charles Schwab & Co.?

Gulf Coast Funds is now based out of the same, small office suite as its sister company GreenTech Automotive in a neighboring building. The walls of the 11th-floor office are lined with pictures of GreenTech’s vehicles, but a sign in the reception area bearing the company’s name also lists “Gulf Coast Funds” below it. A receptionist in the building’s lobby said she knew that GreenTech’s offices were located on the 11th floor but was unaware that Gulf Coast Funds shared an office with the company.

Employees working in the office Thursday declined to answer a reporter’s questions or to provide their names and affiliations. They also said Wang was not in the office and was unavailable for an interview.

While Gulf Coast has a modest website, it lists only GreenTech as a client. A page on the site listing the firm’s “management team” appears to have been deleted in recent days.

GreenTech completed construction of a factory building in Tunica, Miss. last year. A news release on the firm’s website said production was to begin in November, but the facility is still getting up an running, according to a local official.

“Their employment in Tunica is approximately 80 employees and they are actively seeking more employees in skilled trades. The company continues to build their workforce, install equipment and test vehicles,” Lyn Arnold of the Tunica Chamber of Commerce said in an email Thursday.

Gulf Coast was founded in 2007 by David Voelker, a Republican businessman who donated to candidates of both parties, and George Brower, who hoped to stimulate business investments after Hurricane Katrina devastated the region. Voelker was the key force behind the project, Blanco said, but later sold the firm to Wang, a Virginia businessman.

“When Wang bought it, he thought it was a solid company,” Blanco said. McAuliffe and Rodham came aboard after Wang took over, the former governor said. McAuliffe’s goal was to bring part of GreenTech or another a manufacturing firm to rural Virginia, using the investor-visa financing. No such deal was ever cut.

Blanco said the company became controversial only in 2013, when McAuliffe began running for governor and cut his ties with both Gulf Coast and GreenTech. Suddenly, the political connections that seemed to be an asset for the business venture made it a target. That angered Wang, the former governor said.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivers the keynote address at the Dreamforce convention Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2014, in San Francisco. Clinton said Tuesday the nation needs to close a 'word gap' between low-income children and their more affluent peers. Other topic included her support of 'net neutrality', her new granddaughter Charlotte and the importance of philanthropy. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

Hillary's nerd squad

“It looked to me like everyone was working and working in a legitimate way,” Blanco said. “When it got politicized, it got fractured. When Terry started running for governor, everything became intensely political, and Charlie became upset with the political piece of it.”

In 2013, GreenTech Automotive filed an $85 million libel lawsuit against a Virginia-based, self-styled watchdog group, the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity, which investigated the company and raised questions about its political connections and business prospects.

A federal judge in Mississippi dismissed the libel claims against the group and its writer last July. GreenTech’s appeal of that ruling is pending before a federal appeals court. GreenTech also refiled the libel suit in September in a state court in Alexandria, Virginia.

Mayorkas has adamantly denied any wrongdoing and described himself as “impervious” to political influence. However, in a response to Homeland Security investigators he described his dealings with McAuliffe as “difficult and unpleasant.” The former immigration official, who now serves as deputy secretary of homeland security, also said he received “caustic,” “inflammatory” and expletive-laden phone calls from McAuliffe, a charge the now-governor didn’t deny Thursday.

”I was angrier than heck at all these people,” McAuliffe told WRVA radio in Richmond on Thursday, noting that the calls came before he was elected in 2013. “Just as I do as governor. … I pick up the phone and I raise heck. I do what I think is right.”

Blanco said Thursday that she remembered people affiliated with Gulf Coast being mystified at the lack of action by immigration officials, but she didn’t recall what the firm’s management decided to do about it. She said she was disappointed by the flap but sympathetic to McAuliffe’s efforts to try to get federal officials to approve the firm’s applications.

“I don’t like anything I’m involved with to have anything negative said about it, but it was a very legal program,” the former governor added. “What are people supposed to do when they find a level of frustration with the bureaucracy?”

Proposal for Designation of Gulf Coast Funds Management (GCFM) as a USCIS recognized Regional Center under... by Beverly Tran on Scribd

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Day 98.2 Navy and USGS in Mining in Afghanistan and the Poppy

Marines ignore opium —  Taliban's cash crop

Marines fear locals would fight back if they destroyed the lucrative plants

GARMSER, Afghanistan — The Marines of Bravo Company's 1st Platoon sleep beside a grove of poppies. Troops in the 2nd Platoon playfully swat at the heavy opium bulbs while walking through the fields. Afghan laborers scraping the plant's gooey resin smile and wave.

Last week, the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit moved into southern Helmand province, the world's largest opium poppy-growing region, and now find themselves surrounded by green fields of the illegal plants that produce the main ingredient of heroin.

The Taliban, whose fighters are exchanging daily fire with the Marines in Garmser, derives up to $100 million a year from the poppy harvest by taxing farmers and charging safe passage fees — money that will buy weapons for use against U.S., NATO and Afghan troops.

Yet the Marines are not destroying the plants. In fact, they are reassuring villagers the poppies won't be touched. American commanders say the Marines would only alienate people and drive them to take up arms if they eliminated the impoverished Afghans' only source of income.

Only source of income

Many Marines in the field are scratching their heads over the situation.

"It's kind of weird. We're coming over here to fight the Taliban. We see this. We know it's bad. But at the same time we know it's the only way locals can make money," said 1st Lt. Adam Lynch, 27, of Barnstable, Mass.

The Marines' battalion commander, Lt. Col. Anthony Henderson, said in an interview Tuesday that the poppy crop "will come and go" and that his troops can't focus on it when Taliban fighters around Garmser are "terrorizing the people."

"I think by focusing on the Taliban, the poppies will go away," said Henderson, a 41-year-old from Washington, D.C. He said once the militant fighters are forced out, the Afghan government can move in and offer alternatives.

An expert on Afghanistan's drug trade, Barnett Rubin, complained that the Marines are being put in such a situation by a "one-dimensional" military policy that fails to integrate political and economic considerations into long-range planning.

"All we hear is, not enough troops, send more troops," said Rubin, a professor at New York University. "Then you send in troops with no capacity for assistance, no capacity for development, no capacity for aid, no capacity for governance."

Most of the 33,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan operate in the east, where the poppy problem is not as great. But the 2,400-strong 24th Marines, have taken the field in this southern growing region during harvest season.

Smugglers make money

In the poppy fields 100 feet from the 2nd Platoon's headquarters, three Afghan brothers scraped opium resin over the weekend. The youngest, 23-year-old Sardar, said his family would earn little money from the harvest.

"We receive money from the shopkeepers, then they will sell it," said Sardar, who was afraid to give his last name. "We don't have enough money to buy flour for our families. The smugglers make the money," added Sardar, who worked alongside his 11-year-old son just 20 yards from a Marine guard post, its guns pointed across the field.

Afghanistan supplies some 93 percent of the world's opium used to make heroin, and the Taliban militants earn up to $100 million from the drug trade, the United Nations estimates. The export value of this harvest was $4 billion — more than a third of the country's combined gross domestic product.

Though they aren't eradicating poppies, the Marines presence could still have a positive effect. 

Henderson said the drug supply lines have been disrupted at a crucial point in the harvest. And Marine commanders are debating staying in Garmser longer than originally planned.

Second Lt. Mark Greenlief, 24, a Monmouth, Ill., native who commands the 2nd Platoon, said he originally wanted to make a helicopter landing zone in Sardar's field. "But as you can see that would ruin their poppy field, and we didn't want to ruin their livelihood."

Sardar "basically said, 'This is my livelihood, I have to do what I can to protect that,'" said Greenlief. "I told him we're not here to eradicate."

The Taliban told Garmser residents that the Marines were moving in to eradicate, hoping to encourage the villagers to rise up against the Americans, said 2nd Lt. Brandon Barrett, 25, of Marion, Ind., commander of the 1st Platoon.

'Stuck in the middle'

In the next field over from Sardar's, Khan Mohammad, an Afghan born in Helmand province who lives in Pakistan and came to work the fields, said he makes only $2 a day. He said the work is dangerous now that Taliban militants are shooting at the U.S. positions.

"We're stuck in the middle," he said. "If we go over there those guys will fire at us. If we come here, we're in danger, too, but we have to work," said the 54-year-old Mohammad, who supports a family of 10.

An even older laborer, his back bent by years of work, came over and told the small gathering of Afghans, Marines and journalists that the laborers had to get back to work "or the boss will get mad at us."

Staff Sgt. Jeremy Stover, whose platoon is sleeping beside a poppy crop planted in the interior courtyard of a mud-walled compound, said the Marines' mission is to get rid of the "bad guys," and "the locals aren't the bad guys."

"Poppy fields in Afghanistan are the cornfields of Ohio," said Stover, 28, of Marion, Ohio. "When we got here they were asking us if it's OK to harvest poppy and we said, 'Yeah, just don't use an AK-47.'"

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Day 62 - Where is Eric Braverman?

Social Justice Covers For Oil Pipelines and Construction

FBI Using Deep Dive Surveillance To Extort Bribes For Clinton Foundation?

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Day 61 - Where is Eric Braverman?

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Day 60 - Where is Eric Braverman?

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©