Deutsche Bank Offices Are Searched in Money Laundering Investigation

One hundred seventy officers searched the headquarters of Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt and five other sites in the area early Thursday as part of a money-laundering investigation involving hundreds of millions of euros, prosecutors in Frankfurt said.

Two employees, who were not publicly identified but whose ages were given as 50 and 46, and other “unidentified people in positions of authority” are suspected of failing to report possible money laundering for transactions worth 311 million euros, or more than $350 million. read more »

Deutsche Bank's Legal Troubles Just Don't Seem to End: Timeline

Just when you thought Deutsche Bank AG had put its legal troubles behind, the past is coming back to haunt it.

Deutsche Bank has spent more than $18 billion over the past decade in fines and to settle legal disputes, according to calculations by Bloomberg. Here’s a timeline of recent cases: read more »

President and CEO of Las Vegas Investment Company Convicted of $1.5 Billion Ponzi Scheme

The former president and CEO of MRI International Inc. (MRI), a purported investment company and medical collections business located in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Tokyo, Japan, was convicted yesterday for his role in a $1.5 billion Ponzi scheme. read more »

SEC Charges Self-Described Promoter With Microcap Market Manipulation Scheme

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged a self-described penny stock promoter and an entity he controlled with orchestrating a scheme to manipulate trading in at least 97 microcap stocks.

According to the SEC’s complaint, Eric Landis of Charlottesville, Virginia, falsely claimed to third-party media buyers for microcap companies that he would distribute promotional materials for the stocks via email lists with tens of thousands of subscribers. In reality, his distribution lists were a sham. To generate trading volume and create the false impression that he was drumming up investor interest, the SEC alleges that Landis traded thousands of microcap shares himself using brokerage accounts in his own name, in the name of an entity he controlled, Ridgeview Capital Partners LLC, and in the names of several third parties. Altogether, the SEC alleges that Landis placed thousands of manipulative trades over three years, including approximately 1,300 “matched trades,” which involved simultaneously selling and buying stocks in the microcap companies he was paid to promote. read more »