Insys Founder Gets 5½ Years in Prison in Opioid Kickback Scheme

NEW YORK TIMES

The company executive, John Kapoor, was accused of bribing doctors and misleading insurers to increase sales of a highly addictive painkiller.

A federal judge sentenced John Kapoor, the founder of the opioid manufacturer Insys Therapeutics, to five and a half years in prison Thursday for his role in a racketeering scheme that bribed doctors to prescribe a highly addictive opioid and misled insurers. read more »

Former Wells Fargo CEO Hit With $17.5 Million Fine, Barred From Banking Industry

FORBES

U.S. regulators announced on Thursday it was taking punitive action against eight former Wells Fargo executives, including ex-CEO John Stumpf, in connection to the bank’s fake accounts scandal. Stumpf agreed to a $17.5 million fine and a lifetime ban from the banking industry. read more »

Isabel dos Santos: Banker found dead in Lisbon

BBC

A banker implicated in the embezzlement and money-laundering case against Africa's richest woman, Isabel dos Santos, has been found dead in Lisbon.

Nuno Ribeiro da Cunha, 45, managed the account of oil firm Sonangol, formerly chaired by Ms Dos Santos, at the small Portuguese lender EuroBic.

His death, on Wednesday, was reported on Thursday soon after Angolan prosecutors named both as suspects. read more »

It May Be the Biggest Tax Heist Ever. And Europe Wants Justice.

NEW YORK TIMES

Stock traders are accused of siphoning $60 billion from state coffers, in a scheme that one called “the devil’s machine.” Germany is the first country to try to get its money back.

The scheme was built around “cum-ex trading” (from the Latin for “with-without”): a monetary maneuver to avoid double taxation of investment profits that plays out like high finance’s answer to a David Copperfield stage illusion. Through careful timing, and the coordination of a dozen different transactions, cum-ex trades produced two refunds for dividend tax paid on one basket of stocks.

One basket of stocks. Abracadabra. Two refunds.

The process was repeated over and over, as word of cum-ex spread like a quiet contagion. Germany was hardest hit, with an estimated $30 billion in losses, followed by France, taken for about $17 billion. Smaller sums were drained away from Spain, Italy, Belgium, Austria, Norway, Finland, Poland and others. read more »

Care provider to adult home residents to pay $1.1 million to resolve kickback, fraudulent billing allegations

McKNIGHTS

A New York otolaryngologist has agreed to pay more than $1.1 million to resolve civil allegations that he and his practice paid kickbacks and submitted false claims to federal healthcare programs for services provided to residents of adult homes in violation of the False Claims Act. read more »