Whistleblower News From The Inside -- March 26, 2018
By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team
Theresa May stands by adviser who ‘outed’ Brexit whistleblower – The prime minister has “full confidence” in her political adviser Stephen Parkinson after he was accused of outing a whistleblower to distract attention from allegations he made about Vote Leave’s spending during the referendum campaign. The whistleblower, Shahmir Sanni, says he has endured one of the “most awful weekends” of his life after telling the Observer how Vote Leave channeled money through BeLeave, a group linked to Cambridge Analytica, to get around electoral law. On Friday Sanni was outed by Stephen Parkinson, now one of Theresa May’s closest advisers and a former Vote Leave official, with whom Sanni had an affair during the campaign. On Monday Sanni heaped further pressure on the government over the allegations by accusing Parkinson of trying to smear him. The Guardian
SEC Stops Ponzi-Schemer Targeting Retail Investors and Obtains Preliminary Injunction and Asset Freeze – The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges and a preliminary injunction and asset freeze against Niket Shah, a New Jersey resident who stole more than $250,000 in a Ponzi scheme in which his friends and coworkers invested. Based on investor complaints, the SEC moved quickly to investigate and charge Shah. According to the SEC’s complaint, unsealed on March 22, 2018, in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, Shah used Spark Trading Group, LLC to defraud more than 15 investors into contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars to two funds that Shah marketed. Shah obtained investments for the funds by lying about his success as a trader, Spark Trading’s returns, and how he intended to use investors’ money, including altering financial statements to make the funds appear profitable when they were actually losing money. For instance the complaint alleges that Shah promised investors he would pay them monthly returns and guaranteed against losses. According to the complaint, Shah misused investor money for his own benefit and suffered substantial losses on the amounts actually invested. When investors sought their money back, he lied and said the money had been frozen by government agencies, including the Commission. SEC
Union Bank of India shares slump after lender makes fraud complaint – The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered the case against Hyderabad-based Totem Infrastructure and directors after a complaint from Union Bank, which the CBI said had been cheated out of about 3.14 billion rupees. Reuters could not reach Totem or its directors for comment. The case comes after a more-than $2 billion fraud in state-run Punjab National Bank (PNBK.NS), dubbed the biggest bank fraud in India’s history, triggered scrutiny of all soured bank loans for any sign of wrongdoing. Totem Infrastructure, loans to which became non-performing in June 2012, “allegedly diverted the funds by opening accounts outside the consortium (of eight banks) and through payments of wages by showing excess expenditure and huge stocks”, the CBI said in a statement late on Thursday. Reuters