Word: fraud
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Bank executives said they finally realized their mammoth problem last weekend. Société Générale chief executive of corporate and investment banking Jean-Pierre Mustier told reporters that he was "convinced [Kerviel] acted alone." Kerviel confessed to the elaborate fraud during a six-hour grilling by bank officials on Saturday night, according to the Daily Telegraph, which posted a photograph online of a slender, dark-haired man. Despite the weekend revelations, three days lapsed before executives suspended trading of Société Générale shares. They declined to tell reporters...
...huge scale and complexity of Kerviel's fraud has strong echoes of Nick Leeson, a young rogue British trader in Singapore. Leeson bankrupted the 230-year-old Barings Bank in 1995, after losing $1.38 billion in fictitious trades on Asian futures markets, single-handedly wiping out Barings' cash reserves. Leeson was jailed for more than three years in Singapore, and the scandal became almost synonymous with the power of a lone employee to unravel a large company. At the time, officials at various banks said they were tightening internal security measures in order to avert a similar disaster...
Nowadays, thanks in large part to an understanding of how difficult both technologies actually are - and partly also to the human-cloning fraud perpetrated by the Korean scientist Hwang Woo Suk in 2004 - scientists are a lot more skeptical about the significance of each new claim. That's why there hasn't been so much excitement about a report published online Thursday by the journal Stem Cells. The authors claim to have created cloned human embryos that they believe are capable of producing stem cells - the raw material for all of the body's specialized tissues, from heart to muscle...
...December 27, Kenya held its elections, which saw incumbent President Mwai Kibaki claim victory over opposition Raila Odinga, whose supporters then accused Kibaki of fraud. Mass riots and looting occurred across the country, blocking trade routes and killing over 600. Aid agencies estimate 250,000 people have been displaced due to the conflict...
...barely a week goes by without a new corruption scandal among the business and political élite. A week after he was elected leader of the ruling African National Congress, Jacob Zuma was indicted on one charge of racketeering, one of money laundering, two of corruption and 12 of fraud in connection with bribes paid by a French arms company. (He denies all the charges...