DOJ Announces Results of Financial Fraud Task Force's "Operation Broken Trust"
On December 6, 2010, Attorney General Eric Holder announced the results of "Operation Broken Trust," a nationwide law enforcement effort formed by the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force to investigate investment fraud. Holder said in a press release:
With this operation, the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force is sending a strong message. To the public: be alert for these frauds, take appropriate measures to protect yourself, and report such schemes to proper authorities when they occur. And to anyone operating or attempting to operate an investment scam: cheating investors out of their earnings and savings is no longer a safe business plan - we will use every tool at our disposal to find you, to stop you, and to bring you to justice.
Holder was joined at the press conference by representatives of the other federal agencies comprising the task force, including the SEC, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and IRS. "Operation Broken Trust," formed in August of this year, resulted in 60 civil enforcement actions and 231 criminal cases. The effort targeting a total of 343 criminal defendants and 189 civil defendants, and involved more than $10 billion in estimated losses, according to the DOJ press release.
"Operation Broken Trust" is part of the federal governments effort to marshal the efforts of agencies involved in the financial market through the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force. The task force's civil and criminal cases brought to date cover a broad spectrum of the financial markets, and involve alleged violations ranging from securities fraud and insider trading to mortgage fraud and lending discrimination.
Read more about this topic at: Law360; The Washington Post; and The Los Angeles Times.
