Like conspicuous consumption, the financial criminal who attempts to fake his own death and takes it on the lam has become trite. We have seen it three times in the past year.
First, Samuel Israel, the architect of the fraudulent Bayou hedge fund, left his car on a bridge over the Hudson River with the phrase “Suicide is Painless” drawn in the dust and pollen on the hood, leaving authorities - who were expecting him to report to prison that day - wondering whether he had jumped to his death.
Next came Marcus Schrenker, the financial adviser from Indiana, who parachuted from his plane after a faked distress call, leaving the plane on autopilot to crash in the Gulf of Mexico (the plane fell short and came within yards of hitting waterfront homes). Schrenker made his way to a motorcycle that he had stowed away in a storage facility in rural Alabama.
Most recently came the case of Arthur Nadel, who phoned his step-son to alert him to the presence of a suicide note. The FBI and the SEC are looking for Nadel now.
Israel walked into a police station after a few days on the run. Police found Schrenker in a pup tent in a KOA campground in
Florida. Nadel is missing still, but police will likely find him alive. We certainly hope so.What all of these men have in common was a narcissism that led them to take advantage of the investors who entrusted them with their money. Narcissists rarely take their own lives. They value their lives and their comfort above all. What else do they have in common? All of them inspired trust; their clients believed their promises of safety and security. None of their clients would have ever admitted the possibility that the men could be scam artists. And yet. An investigation into any one of them would have led an investor protection company to warn clients away from these men. The horrendous losses need never have happened. If even one of the defrauded investors had sought the advice of a former SEC Enforcement Branch Chief, not only would that client still have his or her nest egg, but - with client consent - the Branch Chief would have phoned his former colleagues at the SEC to alert them to the scam, thereby allowing the SEC to shut it down after maybe six month rather than six years, thus sparing hundreds or thousands of investors the loss of their hard-earned life savings.When they find Nadel, remember the trust that so many placed in him and reflect on the trust you’ve placed in your broker. What makes your broker different? When you come up with the answer, ask yourself how you know the facts upon which you base that opinion. How many of them came from an objective source, and how many of them came from the broker himself?
This entry was posted
on Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 at 6:11 am and is filed under Investor Protection, Florida, Investors at Risk, SEC, Scams, Securities Industry (general).
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