Last November, for the thirteenth year in a row, the EU’s auditors refused to sign off its financial accounts citing errors of legality and presumed attempts at fraud. Then, only two weeks ago EU politicians were openly accused of fraud and embezzlement on a massive scale and an official investigation was launched that could potentially lead to the imprisonment of a number of MEPs. Corruption, fraud and an overall lack of accountability are becoming increasingly rife amongst the European Union’s political elite and it is clearly time that ordinary citizens are given a direct say in the way that the EU is developing. Simply giving people one vote every four or five years – to elect their political representatives – is not nearly enough in any political system that still professes to be a democracy. Paul Anthony Taylor, external relations director of Dr Rath Health Foundation & campaign coordinator
The religious fraud is probably the most insidious. I’ve seen more money stolen in the name of God than any other way. It’s the worst form of con-artistry that you can imagine. But think about ministers and those in the religious order – these are the folks you look up to and trust. Joe Borg, Director, Alabama Securities Commission
Conmen: the most devious of all criminals. Charming, cruel and calculating, they betray trust and devastate lives yet remain a complete enigma. Conman Case Files s1e1: John Myatt & John Drewe, 2007
The 20th century’s biggest art fraud: a struggling artist was drawn into a con which would make millions, with the artist and conman secretly working together for almost a decade. ibid.
Drewe: his masterstroke was the infiltration of the British art archives. ibid.
‘We reckon he’d done about 200.’ ibid.
The art world and the police were gathering evidence. ibid.
The dramatic and shocking intricacies of one man’s elaborate crimes. Conman Case Files s1e4: Carl Hildebrandt
The men had created fictitious firms and businesses in a sophisticated scheme to fraudulently obtain almost £200,000 in government grants. ibid.
Stolen cheques had been converted to Krugerrands. ibid.
He faked his own death then stole a dead child’s identity. ibid.
Like many in the 1980s Nick Leeson wanted to be rich and successful. But Nick Leeson was also a very strange man. He had an extraordinary ability to manipulate and deceive those around him. Adam Curtis, Inside Story Special, BBC 1996
Together they lost £830 million. In 1986 Mrs Thatcher deregulated the City of London. The old division between banks and stockbrokers was removed. The gentlemanly image of the banker was replaced by that of the trader. Nick Leeson was working as a clerk for the giant American bank Morgan Stanley. On the surface he appeared like everyone else in this new world. A boy from the suburbs who wanted to be a trader. In 1989 Leeson asked to become a trader but Morgan Stanley refused. He decided it was time to move. This time he chose a British bank. Barings was the oldest merchant bank in England in Britain. It had been run by the Barings family for over two hundred years. They were related to practically everyone … Even the Queen held an account at Barings. ibid.
Nick Leeson went to work for Baring Securities. Six years before they had been a small team of stockbrokers. Now they contributed over half the profits of the bank. ibid.
Leeson had joined an organisation falling apart after the boom of the ’80s. He worked as a bookkeeper trying to keep track of the bank’s money. And he was good at it. So he was sent overseas to sort out problems. ibid.
Leeson was going to trade in one of the newest, most exciting markets – Futures … Leeson’s job was to buy and sell [Singapore] Futures: these are bets on the way a market will move in the future. ibid.
In the summer of 1992 the market fluctuated violently. In the chaos Leeson’s team began to make serious mistakes ... Leeson hid the loses. He didn’t want to go back to being a clerk. He put the loses into a computerised account called the 88888 account, and altered its software so London wouldn’t see what he was doing. ibid.
As the weeks passed London continued sending Leeson money. They failed to notice there was no equivalent money coming in from clients. Leeson had discovered a weakness in the system. He would hide his mistakes and trade out of them in his own time, and no-one would ever know. But the weakness that Leeson had discovered was just one crack in an organisation that was falling apart. ibid.
Leeson’s deception had gone badly wrong. Throughout the end of 1992 the market had gone against him. As it did so, the losses he had hidden mounted up. The secret 88888 account turned into a monster with a life of its own. At one point it held losses of £4 million. ibid.
Leeson started his deception again. But this time it was not to cover up other people’s mistakes. It was a deliberate fraud. He began to use his secret account to give his clients cut-price deals. He sold them Futures at unreal prices, making a loss for himself. He then took these losses and hid them away in the secret account. ibid.
‘He is an agent of destruction.’ ibid. Barings big-wig
Leeson was now on a merry-go-round he couldn’t get off. ibid.
His loses were catastrophic. On one day alone he lost £50 million. But he kept going. To do so he needed vast margin payments from London. ibid.
In recent years a series of extraordinary finds have been made in the Holy Lands. These astonishing discoveries are linked to some of the most famous events in the Bible. They appear to be new evidence of the burial of Jesus. And for the legendary Temple of Solomon. Or is there another darker story behind these mysterious objects? The Solomon Treasures, 2008
And it was here more than twenty-five years ago in Jerusalem’s Antiquities Market that one of the most remarkable artefacts in the Holy Land’s history first came to light. It was a tiny object, just four centimetres long, badly damaged, and no-one knew where it came from. But it would be hailed as a unique piece of history. It became known as the Ivory Pomegranate. It was thought to be the ornamental tip of a priest’s ceremonial staff. But what amazed the experts was the inscription … Holy to the Priests of the House of God. It suggested that this exquisite little ornament was used by priests in the first temple of Jerusalem, which according to the Bible, was built by King Solomon. ibid.
Before it came to light, there was no independent evidence, apart from the Bible, that Solomon’s temple had actually existed. ibid.
According to Biblical history the Temple was destroyed by fire in 586 B.C. by invaders from Babylon. The Western Wall where Jewish pilgrims now come to pray is all that’s left of a second temple built on the same site as King Solomon’s Temple by King Herod the Great 500 years later. ibid.
So the Pomegranate was an extraordinary find. The tiny artefact with a large chip on one side was the first physical link to the lost Temple of Solomon. But was the Pomegranate authentic? ibid.
When the Museum tried to track down the owner, it ran into a wall: the Pomegranate had already changed hands. There wasn’t a dealer in Israel who seemed to know where it was. ibid.
Then several years later in 1987 out of the blue the museum received a mysterious phone call. The Pomegranate was now available but at a price … The cash paid by an anonymous donor was paid into an anonymous Swiss bank account. The Pomegranate was returned to Jerusalem and there in the Israel Museum along with such priceless national treasures as the Dead Sea Scrolls it was given pride of place. An authentic link to King Solomon’s Temple. ibid.
Then, in uncannily similar circumstances, another extraordinary artefact became headline news … The man with the briefcase claimed to be acting on behalf of a client. He couldn’t reveal his client’s identity … ‘a gorgeous piece of black stone’. ibid.
The inscription on the shiny black stone described repairs made to the Temple of Solomon by a king called Jehoash in the 8th century B.C. If it was genuine, it was priceless. Like the Ivory Pomegranate it appeared to confirm that Solomon’s Temple actually existed. Better still, it provided unique confirmation of events in the Old Testament. The Professors wanted to know who the owner was and where the object had come from. All the stranger would reveal was it was found near the Temple Mount. ibid.
Analysis of the tablet by the scientists had revealed more: they found the surface contained tiny flecks of charcoal – which proved to be over two thousand years old. And they found tiny specks of gold – just what might be expected if it had survived a fire when the gold-encrusted Temple of Solomon was destroyed. ibid.
The years of detective work lead … to the home of a businessman. One of Israel’s leading antiquities collectors – Oded Golan. Golan has been collecting ancient artefacts since he was a boy. He admitted he had been helping to sell the missing stone tablet but denied he had ever been its owner. But the authorities were not convinced by the story. And what made them highly suspicious was that the same collector, Oded Golan, had recently been involved with another sensational discovery that suddenly appeared. ibid.
There are hundreds of stone boxes all dating to the time of Jesus … They are ossuaries, receptacles for storing the bones of the dead. ibid.
In 2002 one of these ancient bone boxes became the centre of world-wide media attention ... The inscription translates as: James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus … The ancient bone-box was hailed as the final resting place for St James, the brother of Jesus of Nazareth. And the first archaeological evidence linked to Jesus himself. It caused a sensation and was viewed by nearly 100,000 people at the Royal Ontario museum in Toronto. Another extraordinary Biblical artefact. And its owner was Oded Golan. He claimed he had owned the ossuary for years. ibid.