Monday, December 15, 2008

The Good Life

Another fraud, who has the special joy of being ... out-done this week (and, therefore, out of sight?). Mr. Dreier.

As one bank-examiner noted long ago during the Milken junk-bond fiasco, "look for the bankers with the Italian shoes."

He has a triplex apartment on the East Side of Manhattan, along with a house near the beach in Southampton, N.Y., and a 120-foot yacht. The walls of his Park Avenue office drip with expensive modern art, and he kept three personal assistants busy.

He peddled false notes to eager hedge fund investors, among others, so says the NYT, to the tune of $113 million.

These things are fascinating, because they are so far beyond the realm of my constitution to even conceive of such a scheme. It's like looking at a different world - and I don't mean the yacht, etc.

3 comments:

gandalf43 said...

As one bank-examiner noted long ago during the Milken junk-bond fiasco, "look for the bankers with the Italian shoes."

I don't remember that. Which bank examiner was that? Where was he or she quoted as saying that?

Amicus said...

Everyone remembers that!

It was on the front page of the Times or something. (It's *certainly* not some inside scoop).

To be fair, I don't think that examiners are trained to look for signs of largess as the signposts of likely fraud. Besides, it may well have been an SEC official, rather than an examiner.

gandalf43 said...

Amicus--
OK, if everyone remembers it, in what publication was it quoted? When?