Subject: Corporate Crime

• News Roundup

  Brrrrr. It's cold out there. [CBS4]Traffic fines are going up because the State can't pay its bills. [NBC6]And because the State can't pay its own bills, it sure as hell isn't going to start paying more of the poor's rent. [NBC6]A cigarette smoker nearly burnt down his apartment complex. [Herald]The Embargo is popular again. [Herald]Another Florida ponzi scheme. This one with a rock'n'roll twist. [Herald]

  February 4, 2009

• News Roundup

  LocalVice President Biden tried to butter up reps from the biggest union in all the land, AFL-CIO, so they'd support the stimulus bill during a meeting in Miami Beach yesterday. [AP]He also announced $8.4 billion from the stimulus package will benefit transportation, and called the Miami Intermodal Center "the wave of the future." [CBS News]Employees at Stanford Financial Miami branch, the company owned and operated by ponzi-schemer Allen Stanford (who does not deserve to be called sir), came ba

  March 6, 2009

• Florida: Swindled and Beaten Bloody

  Just in case yesterday's news of a bounce on the stock market gave you a glimmer of hope, Riptide is here to remind you that your future is bleak and depressing. The CBC recently compared Florida to "a terrified cardiac patient," lying awake at night, praying the angina will pass. "The confidence games here were ruinous," writes Neil Macdonald. "The housing fraud was industrial scale. The economic shortsightedness bordered on lunacy." Macdonald hops from Lehigh Acres ("Some of these homes--past

  March 19, 2009

• Allen Stanford Will Punch You in the Mouth If You Ask About His Ponzi Scheme

  In a state still reeling from Bernie Madoff and staggering toward 10 percent unemployment, it's tough to think of many adjectives less likely to endear you to the commoners than accused billionaire Ponzi schemer.via mediaimran's flickrStanford, at left, sponsored $20 million cricket matches in the good ol' days.So you have to give Allen Stanford some credit for finding a way to make himself even less sympathetic today in his first interview since the SEC accused him of running an $8 billion Ponz

  April 6, 2009

• There Must Be More to Life than Cable TV

  October 26, 1995

• The Fall of a Titan

  A downtown Miami firm allegedly helped build an $8 billion Ponzi scheme. It could have been stopped.

  April 9, 2009

• Madoff's Man

  South Florida multimillionaire Michael Bienes never cut ties with Bernie Madoff, even after the SEC shut him down.

  January 22, 2009

• Commemorate Your Ponzi Scheme Losses with a Nice Decorative Tile

  Have you been swindled out of your life savings in a massive Ponzi scheme? Are you looking for the perfect way to remember all those heady days of 15 percent returns before the market collapsed? Do you just love R. Allen Stanford's manly Texas mustache? via eBay listing We suggest you buy enough to re-tile your bathroom with this face. A Florida entrepreneur has the product for you! Kosmas Ballis, proprietor of the Fort Myers-based Edison Clay Co., is hawking ceramic tiles with the like

  April 16, 2009

• The Last Service Station, Part 2

  November 9, 2000

• Did the Miami Herald Ignore Warnings Six Years Ago About Stanford Ponzi Scheme?

  As we wrote last month, there weren't any shortages of warning signs that something was fishy at Stanford International. A number of regulators had ample opportunities to expose Stanford's fraud, from the SEC (which ignored several employee whistleblowers) to the DEA to Congress. via Liz Lomax 3D Illustrations, for Texas MonthlyThanks to some new documents made public this morning, now you can add our own Miami Herald to that list of ball-droppers. According to several hundred pages of SEC files

  May 6, 2009

• Feds Indict Miami Man for $2.5 Million Ponzi Scheme

  It has been so long since we've had a good old-fashion Ponzi scheme indictment down here in Miami. That was until Isaac Niego came along and got busted today.Federal authorites claim Niego defrauded 33 investers in a $2.5 million Ponzi scheme. Niego and an unnamed coconsipirator solicited investments through two Coral Gables firms: Bull Trade LLC and Profitas Capital Investments. He promised investors their money would generate guarenteed returns of 100 percent. Of course, if it sounds too good

  June 24, 2009

• Madoff Gets 150 Years in Jail

  Bernie Madoff, the West Palm Beach financial demon who ripped off thousands of investors, many in South Florida, has been sentenced to the maximum 150 years behind bars.  "I'm responsible for a great deal of suffering and pain, I understand that. I live in a tormented state now, knowing all of the pain and suffering that I've created. I've left a legacy of shame, as some of my victims have pointed out, to my family and my grandchildren," Madoff said in court. Madoff's lawyers suggested tha

  June 29, 2009

• Ponzi Schemer Allen Stanford Raked It in Thanks to Lax Florida Regulations

  Way back in April, New Times reported on how Sir Allen Stanford built a $7 billion Ponzi scheme in the Caribbean thanks to blind regulators and political influence. via Liz Lomax 3D Illustrations for the Texas MonthlyYesterday, the Miami Herald fleshed out the local incompetance and greed that helped Stanford rake in more than $600 million from a plush downtown Miami office -- apparently without reporting any of the investments to state regulators. If you haven't read the Herald piece, here are

  July 6, 2009

• Former Miami DEA Chief Charged with Shredding Ponzi Schemer Allen Stanford's Docs

  A quick lesson for all the school kids feverishly getting a Riptide fix before class this morning: If you're working for a blatant Ponzi scheme (and don't worry, someday you will) and the SEC phones and tells you not to lose any documents, don't tell your employees to fire up the shredder. It's just a bad idea. Liz Lomax 3D Illustrations for Texas Monthly​Thomas Raffanello learned that the hard way -- and he really should have known better. Raffanello, a 61-year-old Coral Gables resident

  September 11, 2009

• President Obama fails to go after those responsible for the financial meltdown

  October 29, 2009

• Moron of the Week: Self-Destructive Ponzi Baller Sean Healy

  Photo via MySpace.com Never mind the fact hat he dresses like a club promoter. If your investment manager has a MySpace page, get a new investment manager.​Forget Flagler, Tuttle, and Brickell. We need to start naming streets and bridges after a historical figure whose legacy is honored every day here in South Florida: Charles Ponzi. With heavyweight scammers Bernie Madoff and Allen Stanford basing their operations here, we've become the nation's undisputed champion of the classic "Look

  October 30, 2009

• Ex-Judge Points a Finger at the State Attorney's Office in His Corruption Trial

  If ever the Miami State Attorney's Office has prosecuted a lose-lose case, the ongoing trial of former judge Phil Davis is it. Getting a conviction might just make the prosecutor's office look negligent in its past dealings with the alleged fraud organizer.​If Davis' sname sounds familiar, it's because he was one of four judges caught up in a juicy FBI sting in the mid-'90s called "Operation Court Broom." The feds snared the judges accepting bribes in brown paper bags and under car seats from

  November 3, 2009