a plot

East German capital spirited through Lichtenstein mingled with an American bankruptcy funds life sciences securities fraud in US capital markets. A tale that Twain could not have conjured.

The monies inflate shell companies controlling the float, the management, and the board. Industry rags are paid to promote a promise of a molecule to be developed through the biotechnology life cycle of generations. 

Professional gatekeepers provide the appearance of authentic SEC filings. The helium of the promises is touted through underwriters to dentists in San Diego or passive money in mutual funds with enough capital not to care about an 80% loss. The insiders unload and move on to the next cadaver.

These bucket trades require a blizzard of paper and parking of the conscience. The willingly blind participating for a fee. The regulator overwhelmed. The perpetrators confident that the crime will return a punishment that is a fraction of the swipe and no suspension of liberty. The Dentists without remedy.

These tales go to script with mundane actors intent on shifting capital between pockets. But every now and again a detail reminds of a plot to delicious not to share. 

That nugget was the early release of Mr Bennet after serving twelve of a sixteen year sentence for a $500 million fraud that bankrupted REFCO and an Austrian bank BAWAG. The bank would be bailed out by Austrian regulators and Cerberus Capital Management.

As a footnote the reincarnated banks largest customer is a family trust of a gentleman that spirited people and money out of East Germany when it was East Germany.  The trust, the gentleman, and conceivably others are proprietors of Alpha Capital Anstalt a fund in Lichtenstein with a penchant for dilution to the death of shell companies that it inflates.

A tale chronicled well here that stops short of the Alpha journey into vaccines.

Think about Lichtenstein for a while and stumble into Trust funds for deceased Polish billionaires that end up in London Real Estate partnered with money that escaped South Africa through the eminent domain of state contracts that did little for the Natives. 

The escapade marries these monies to the detritus of a US commodity bankruptcy, private equity ownership on behalf of anonymous limited partners, and monies cleansed in US capital markets destined for underwriters, gatekeepers, and Guernsey.

A tale worth a write