Eliot Ness
Bureau of Prohibition
Eliot Ness
April 19, 1903(1903-04-19)-May 16, 1957 (aged 54)

Oh good news on the drug front. I mean assuming you are not short a nickel bag or something.

Federal officials arrested more than 300 people in raids against the Mexican drug cartel La Familia on Wednesday and Thursday, the Associated Press reports. More than 3,000 police officers and federal agents carried out raids in 38 cities and 19 states "as part of a long-running effort that has netted nearly 1,200 arrests over almost four years." The raids were concentrated in California, the Southwest, and Texas--Dallas was the site of 77 arrests. La Familia, based in southwestern Mexico, "has earned a reputation for dominating the methamphetamine trade and displaying graphic violence, including beheadings," according to the AP.

Associated Press | Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009

I mean here we have international cooperation; two nations working  together for a good purpose. Here we have government attempting to ferret out real crime; AND SUCCEEDING IN THAT ENDEAVOR.

Real results, real arrests and real indictments. What an age we live in. Why not take this kind of good hard work by adept and adeft professionals and apply it to other types of organized crime?

WHAT IF:

Giant hedge fund Galleon Group is closing its doors amid a huge insider-trading scandal whose seed was planted with a 2005 job inquiry by a California fund manager with financial troubles. Galleon co-founder Raj Rajaratnam is free on $100 million bail as investigators dig into information gathered from an informant referred to as "Tipper A," and said to be Roomy Khan, who had worked for Galleon in the '90s. Allegedly, when Khan applied to the hedge fund, Rajaratnam asked her if she had inside information on any public companies. Khan said she could get info on Polycom, a maker of data-conferencing products. The SEC complaint says that Rajaratnam ordered a Polycom trade that earned Galleon $735,000. The government says the informant also gave Rajaratnam tips on Hilton Hotels, with resulting trades making Galleon $4 million, and Google, which brought in $9.3 million for the hedge fund.

Read it at The Wall Street Journal

Posted at 11:10 PM, Oct 21, 2009

First, you got to enjoy the hundred million dollar bail requirement. ha. I mean it looks like this garbage eater had made off with a cool 14.1 million in hard cash. ha.But are there other types of 'stings' that could be instituted in order to get OUT TWO TRILLION DOLLARS BACK?

American International Group plans to pay out $503 million in deferred compensation to some of its top employees, saying it must tap the funds to keep valuable workers from exiting the troubled insurance giant.

News of the payments to top AIG talent comes as the federal government has just put more money into saving the company from bankruptcy, beefing up the total public commitment to $152 billion. Meanwhile, members of Congress are questioning the company's expenditures -- including lavish business trips to resorts -- during a time when taxpayers are on the hook for the bailout.

AIG's troubles stem from bad bets it made guaranteeing and buying risky mortgage investments. On Monday, the U.S. government announced that it would have to expand its rescue of the company to nearly double the $85 billion loan it first provided in September when AIG was unable to pay billions of dollars in claims.   http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/aig-to-pay-top-management-over-500.html

Or what about behavior like this?

Last night, CAPAF Senior Fellow Elizabeth Edwards appeared on The Daily Show with John Stewart to discuss her new book Resilience and health care reform. Edwards stressed the importance of restoring competition in health insurance markets noting that at one point, "the President of UnitedHealth made so much money, that one of every $700 that was spent in this country on health care went to pay him":

( Ms. Edwards was referring to former CEO McGuire of United HealthCare.)

Indeed, as a new report by Health Care for America NOW points out, "profits at 10 of the country's largest publicly-traded health insurance companies in 2007, rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007, from $2.4 billion to $12.9 billion." In 2007, the chief executive officers at these companies collected combined total compensation of $118.6 million -- an average of $11.9 million each."

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/05/21/elizabeth-edwards-1-of-every-700-went-to-pay-salary-of-unitedhealth-ceo/

Now this is the news item I would like to read one day in the AP or the Boston Globe:

Federal officials arrested more than 30,000 people in raids against the Wall Street Cartel responsible for two trillion dollars in losses to Americans, 10 million lost jobs, two trillion dollars in government deficits over the next eight years, and  the loss of 10 million homes that went into foreclosure. More than 10,000 police officers and federal agents carried out raids in 38 cities and 19 states "as part of a long-running effort that has netted nearly 3,200 arrests over the last two weeks." The raids were concentrated in New York (state)  as well as the entire NE, California, the Southwest, and Texas--NYC  was the site of 7700 arrests alone. The Wall Street Cartel has long been known and has a reputation for using illegal software that allows insiders to 'predict' when it is best to sell and when it is best to buy. The Cartel infiltrated the mortgage market over the last ten years and participated in a practice know as 'bundling' which, we have learned recently, is covered by several state and federal statutes relating to general fraudulent business practices. As part of the sting operations, undercover agents simply called telephone numbers listed for the use of the general public, seeking advice for the purchase of general stocks and bonds.

In addition, 500 CEO's were arrested on separate charges of embezzlement. In some cases salary and bonus packages for the top level of management were larger than the deficits run by their own companies. Besides embezzlement charges, these members of management were charged with extortion and bribing members of Congress as well as members of state legislators in 23 states.