8/19/2011 - SEC Destroys 9,000 Fraud Files Involving Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, Lehman

Source: Mish's

Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, says SEC may have destroyed documents
“From what I’ve seen, it looks as if the SEC might have sanctioned some level of case-related document destruction,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, in a letter to the agency’s chairman, Mary Schapiro.

“It doesn’t make sense that an agency responsible for investigations would want to get rid of potential evidence. If these charges are true, the agency needs to explain why it destroyed documents, how many documents it destroyed over what timeframe, and to what extent its actions were consistent with the law.”

Agency staff “destroyed over 9,000 files” related to preliminary agency investigations, according to a letter sent in July to Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and obtained by MarketWatch.

The allegations were made by SEC enforcement attorney, Darcy Flynn, in a letter to Grassley. Flynn is a current employee, and according to the letter, received a bonus for his past year’s work.

Flynn alleges the SEC destroyed files related to matters being examined in important cases such as Bernard Madoff and a $50 billion Ponzi scheme he operated as well as an investigation involving Goldman Sachs Group Inc. trading in American International Group credit-default swaps in 2009.

Flynn also alleged that the agency destroyed documents and information collected for preliminary investigations at Wells Fargo, Bank of America,, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, and the now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers. 

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8/1/2011 - Goldman Sachs Manipulating Aluminum Prices with Warehouse Scam

Source: Cryptogon

If the left hand isn’t sharing information with the right hand, with hundreds of millions of dollars in potential trading profits hanging in the balance, I’m Santa Claus.

—Usual Suspects Now Heavily Involved with Commodity Warehousing

Via: Reuters:

In a rundown patch of Detroit, enclosed by a cyclone fence and barbed wire, stands an unremarkable warehouse that investment bank Goldman Sachs has transformed into a money-making machine.

The derelict neighborhood off Michigan Avenue is a sharp contrast to Goldman’s bustling skyscraper headquarters near Wall Street, but the two operations share one important element: management by the bank’s savvy financial professionals.

A string of warehouses in Detroit, most of them operated by Goldman, has stockpiled more than a million tonnes of the industrial metal aluminum, about a quarter of global reported inventories.

Simply storing all that metal generates tens of millions of dollars in rental revenues for Goldman every year.

There’s just one problem: much less aluminum is leaving the depots than arriving, creating a supply pinch for manufacturers of everything from soft drink cans to aircraft.

The resulting spike in prices has sparked a clash between companies forced to pay more for their aluminum and wait months for it to be delivered, Goldman, which is keen to keep its cash machines humming and the London Metal Exchange (LME), the world’s benchmark industrial metals market, which critics accuse of lax oversight.

Analysts question why London’s metals market allows big financial players like Goldman to own the warehouses which store huge quantities of metal even as they trade the commodity. Robin Bhar, a veteran metals analyst at Credit Agricole in London says the conflict of interest is so acute he wants U.S. and European anti-trust regulators to weigh in.

“I think it makes a mockery of the market. It’s a shame,” Bhar said. “This is an anti-competitive situation. It puts (some) companies at an advantage, and clearly the rest of the market at a disadvantage. It’s a real, genuine concern. And I think the regulators have to look at it.”

Related: They Made a Killing: The Use of Knowledge of Covert Operations in the Stock Market

http://www.blacklistednews.com/Goldman_Sachs_Manipulating_Aluminum_Prices_with_Warehouse_Scam/14965/0/38/38/Y/M.html