Dave Emory’s entire lifetime of work is available on a flash drive that can be obtained here. (The flash drive includes the anti-fascist books available on this site.)
COMMENT: “Participo” alerts us to an article from The New York Post updating the mortality rate in the financial industry. Although the Post–once a very good newspaper, now a Murdoch sheet–spins the story in a snide sort of way, it is more than a little interesting to see the stunning casualty rate in the financial industry.
These deaths are occurring as numerous investigations are underway into various kinds of malfeasance in the global financial sector, manipulation of the foreign exchange rate, in particular.
We notice that Richard Talley was omitted from the list. Talley, you will recall, allegedly killed himself with seven or eight shots from a nail gun in the head and torso.
Perhaps the editors felt that not even “Murdochians” would buy that one. Or, perhaps, the investigation into Talley’s death was reclassified as a homicide case.
Long live the Republic!
UPDATE: “Pterrafractyl” contributes the death of yet another JP Morgan executive.
EXCERPT: The financial world has been rattled by a rash of apparent suicides, with some of the best and brightest among the finance workers who have taken their lives since the start of the year.
A majority of the eight suicides of 2014 have been very public demonstrations, which has suicide-prevention experts puzzled.
“Jumping is much less common as a method for suicide in general, so I am struck by the number that have occurred in recent months in this industry,” said Dr. Christine Moutier, chief medical officer of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
Moutier also discounts the location of the act as being the driver behind the reason for the suicide.
“The suicide-research literature doesn’t help very much with the question of why the method of these suicides is so out in the open,” she added.
MARCH 12: Kenneth Bellando, 28, an investment banker at Levy Capital, was found dead on the sidewalk outside his building on Manhattan’s East Side, after allegedly jumping from the sixth-story roof, sources said.
MARCH 11: Edmund (Eddie) Reilly, 47, a trader at Midtown’s Vertical Group, jumped in front of an LIRR train near the Syosset, NY, train station.
FEB. 28: Autumn Radtke, CEO of First Meta, a cyber-currency exchange firm, was found dead outside her Singapore apartment. The 28-year-old American jumped from a 25-story building, authorities said.
FEB. 18: Li Junjie, a 33-year-old JPMorgan finance pro, leaped to his death from the roof of the company’s 30-story Hong Kong office tower, authorities said.
FEB. 3: Ryan Henry Crane, 37, a JPMorgan executive director who worked in New York, was found dead inside his Stamford, Conn., home. A cause of death in Crane’s case has yet to be determined as authorities await a toxicology report, a spokesperson for the Stamford Police Department said.
JAN. 31: Mike Dueker, 50, chief economist at Russell Investments and a former Federal Reserve bank economist, was found dead at the side of a road that leads to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington state after jumping a fence and falling down an embankment, according to the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department.
JAN. 28: Gabriel Magee, 39, a vice president with JPMorgan’s corporate and investment bank technology arm in the UK, jumped to his death from the roof of the bank’s 33-story Canary Wharf tower in London.
JAN. 26: William Broeksmit, 58, a former senior risk manager at Deutsche Bank, was found hanged in a house in South Kensington, according to London police.
EXCERPT: About a decade ago, Jeff Stephens was bicycling shoulder-to-shoulder with Joseph A. Giampapa when the two witnessed another cyclist get fatally struck by a car right in front of them.
“It was sort of a bond that we had, and I would say it’s a burden that we carried,” Stephens said yesterday. “We were in very close contact for months after that situation.”
On Saturday, Stephens, of Worthington, got a phone call from the scene of another accident — this time, it was Giampapa who had been struck by a minivan and killed while bicycling north of Troy.
Giampapa, 56, of the Northwest Side, was an accomplished long-distance cyclist and corporate attorney for JPMorgan Chase in Columbus. He was a longtime resident of Victorian Village who had moved with his wife, Thelma, into a condominium near Dublin about two years ago.
He was able to ride his bike thousands of miles in short periods of time and covered some of the most difficult terrain in biking, including the same Alpine routes used in the Tour de France, his friends said yesterday.
“He rode many of the famous climbs in the Alps” in both France and Italy, said Greg DuBois, 59, of Worthington, who had traveled with Giampapa on his excursions.
“He could just ride phenomenal distances without stopping and without getting tired.”
...
Giampapa was biking north on Troy-Sidney Road, near Loy Road, outside of Piqua just after 11 a.m. Saturday when a minivan struck him from behind, Miami County Deputy Todd Tennant said. Giampapa was pronounced dead at the scene.
The minivan driver, Thomas G. Davis, 78, was at fault, Tennant said, but charges haven’t been filed.
Tennant said charges are pending the outcome of a blood toxicology test. But it didn’t appear as though Davis was intoxicated, he added. All of the evidence eventually will be given to a grand jury, Tennant said, but possibly not until May, depending on how long it takes for the blood samples to be processed.
Giampapa’s friends were at a loss about why he was hit.
“It wasn’t a blind turn,” said David Roderick of Athens, who helped organize the 200-kilometer (124.3‑mile) event from Springfield to Quincy to Troy and back that Giampapa was participating in.
“It wasn’t on a hill,” Roderick said. “You could see riders for a very long distance.”
One more?
Assuming this wasn’t an accident but instead a “message” to others, one of the weird risks of that kind of strategy is that it doesn’t just send a “keep you mouth shut and don’t mess with us”-message. It also sends a “we’re the kind of awful human beings that you should be proud to oppose even if it doesn’t end well because, hey, everyone’s going to go someday so you might as well do something meaningful on your way out and do everything you can to oppose horrible people like us”-message. You can’t really separate those two messages.
The self-described Robin Hood of Liechtenstein just killed the CEO of Bank Frick and then committed suicide:
I think it’s worth mentioning that Jim Flaherty, Canada’s Finance minister until just recently, died suddenly of a heart attack. While no indication of foul play has been noted by any pundits, it’s interesting that he resigned without giving any real reason for doing so and then died so soon after. Could it be he learned of the real aims of his cohorts and possessed dangerous information that made him expendable? He may have sought to represent his constituents in a democratic manner although his politics at one time were only a little to the left of Mussolini. I don’t think this is unreasonable speculation given that Harper is gearing up for another election push while treading through the scandals connected to the Electon Act changes and the recent Senate blow-ups. Many a die-hard right-winger has experienced a similar change of heart.
52 Year-Old French Banker Jumps To Her Death In Paris (After Questioning Her Superiors)
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014–04-24/52-year-old-french-banker-jumps-her-death-paris-after-questioning-her-superiors
Tyler Durden’s picture
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/24/2014 23:38 ‑0400
There have been 13 senior financial services executives deaths around the world this year, but the most notable thing about the sad suicide of the 14th, a 52-year-old banker at France’s Bred-Banque-Populaire, is she is the first female.
As Le Parisien reports, Lydia (no surname given) jumped from the bank’s Paris headquarter’s 14th floor shortly before 10am.
FranceTV added that sources said “she questioned her superiors before jumping out the window,” but the bank denies it noting that she had been in therpapy for several years.
FranceTV and Le Parisien reports,
An employee of the Bred-Banque Populaire has committed suicide, Tuesday, April 22 in the morning at the headquarters of the bank. On her arrival at headquarters, quai de la Rapee, in the 12th arrondissement of Paris...
The incident occurred shortly before 10 am, 200 meters from the Ministry of Finance.
...
According to our sources, she questioned his superiors before jumping out the window, that formally denies the direction of the Bank.
“There is absolutely no evidence for designating his relationships with his hierarchy as responsible or letter or message ” insists the direction of the communication FranceTV info.
It also speaks of a “very painful moment for the company” .
...
In an email to all employees consulted by FranceTV info, the management of the bank confirms the “death by suicide” and said “severely affected.” It shows have established a psychological unit.
...
“For the moment, nothing puts the company in question, says the majority union SUNI-Bred/UNSA. The employee got along very well with her new team, her superior is very nice.
“According to a close,” Lydia lived alone, in a difficult environment.
The human resources department states that this inhabitant of Ivry was in therapy for several years. Each describes a “secretive” but “very well known and popular” woman, but “never spoke of it.”
This is the 14th financial services exective death in recent months...
1 — William Broeksmit, 58-year-old former senior executive at Deutsche Bank AG, was found dead in his home after an apparent suicide in South Kensington in central London, on January 26th.
2 — Karl Slym, 51 year old Tata Motors managing director Karl Slym, was found dead on the fourth floor of the Shangri-La hotel in Bangkok on January 27th.
3 — Gabriel Magee, a 39-year-old JP Morgan employee, died after falling from the roof of the JP Morgan European headquarters in London on January 27th.
4 — Mike Dueker, 50-year-old chief economist of a US investment bank was found dead close to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington State.
5 — Richard Talley, the 57 year old founder of American Title Services in Centennial, Colorado, was found dead earlier this month after apparently shooting himself with a nail gun.
6 — Tim Dickenson, a U.K.-based communications director at Swiss Re AG, also died last month, however the circumstances surrounding his death are still unknown.
7 — Ryan Henry Crane, a 37 year old executive at JP Morgan died in an alleged suicide just a few weeks ago. No details have been released about his death aside from this small obituary announcement at the Stamford Daily Voice.
8 — Li Junjie, 33-year-old banker in Hong Kong jumped from the JP Morgan HQ in Hong Kong this week.
9 — James Stuart Jr, Former National Bank of Commerce CEO, found dead in Scottsdale, Ariz., the morning of Feb. 19. A family spokesman did not say whatcaused the death
10 — Edmund (Eddie) Reilly, 47, a trader at Midtown’s Vertical Group, commited suicide by jumping in front of LIRR train
11 — Kenneth Bellando, 28, a trader at Levy Capital, formerly investment banking analyst at JPMorgan, jumped to his death from his 6th floor East Side apartment.
12 — Jan Peter Schmittmann, 57, the former CEO of Dutch bank ABN Amro found dead at home near Amsterdam with wife and daughter.
13 — Li Jianhua, 49, the director of China’s Banking Regulatory Commission died of a sudden heart attack
14 — Lydia _____, 52 — jumped to her suicide from the 14th floor of Bred-Banque Populaire in Paris
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Tyler Durden @ ZeroHedge is on the case:
Deutsche Bank Lawyer And Former SEC Enforcement Attorney Found Dead In Apparent Suicide
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/25/2014 10:52 ‑0400
Back on January 26, a 58-year-old former senior executive at German investment bank behemoth Deutsche Bank, William Broeksmit, was found dead after hanging himself at his London home, and with that, set off an unprecedented series of banker suicides throughout the year which included former Fed officials and numerous JPMorgan traders.
Following a brief late summer spell in which there was little if any news of bankers taking their lives, as reported previously, the banker suicides returned with a bang when none other than the hedge fund partner of infamous former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Khan, Thierry Leyne, a French-Israeli entrepreneur, was found dead after jumping off the 23rd floor of one of the Yoo towers, a prestigious residential complex in Tel Aviv.
Just a few brief hours later the WSJ reported that yet another Deutsche Bank veteran has committed suicide, and not just anyone but the bank’s associate general counsel, 41 year old Calogero “Charlie” Gambino, who was found on the morning of Oct. 20, having also hung himself by the neck from a stairway banister, which according to the New York Police Department was the cause of death. We assume that any relationship to the famous Italian family carrying that last name is purely accidental.
(.... grounds for further genealogy research? — p)
....
As a reminder, the other Deutsche Bank-er who was found dead earlier in the year, William Broeksmit, was involved in the bank’s risk function and advised the firm’s senior leadership; he was “anxious about various authorities investigating areas of the bank where he worked,” according to written evidence from his psychologist, given Tuesday at an inquest at London’s Royal Courts of Justice. And now that an almost identical suicide by hanging has taken place at Europe’s most systemically important bank, and by a person who worked in a nearly identical function — to shield the bank from regulators and prosecutors and cover up its allegedly illegal activities with settlements and fines — is surely bound to raise many questions.
(...is this the understatement of the year? — p)
The WSJ reports that Mr. Gambino had been “closely involved in negotiating legal issues for Deutsche Bank, including the prolonged probe into manipulation of the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, and ongoing investigations into manipulation of currencies markets, according to people familiar with his role at the bank.”
He previously was an associate at a private law firm and a regulatory enforcement lawyer from 1997 to 1999, according to his online LinkedIn profile and biographies for conferences where he spoke. But most notably, as his LinkedIn profile below shows, like many other Wall Street revolving door regulators, he started his career at the SEC itself where he worked from 1997 to 1999.
Going back to the previous suicide by a DB executive, the bank said at the time of the inquest that Mr. Broeksmit “was not under suspicion of wrongdoing in any matter.” At the time of Mr. Broeksmit’s death, Deutsche Bank executives sent a memo to bank staff saying Mr. Broeksmit “was considered by many of his peers to be among the finest minds in the fields of risk and capital management.” Mr. Broeksmit had left a senior role at Deutsche Bank’s investment bank in February 2013, but he remained an adviser until the end of 2013. His most recent title was the investment bank’s head of capital and risk-optimization, which included evaluating risks related to complicated transactions.
A thread connecting Broeksmit to wrongdoing, however, was uncovered earlier this summer when Wall Street on Parade referenced his name in relation to the notorious at the time strategy provided by Deutsche Bank and others to allow hedge funds to avoid paying short-term capital gains taxes known as MAPS (see How RenTec Made More Than $34 Billion In Profits Since 1998: “Fictional Derivatives”)
Clearly Deutsche Bank is slowly becoming Europe’s own JPMorgan — a criminal bank whose past is finally catching up to it, and where legal fine after legal fine are only now starting to slam the banking behemoth. We will find out just what the nature of the latest litigation charge is next week when Deutsche Bank reports, but one thing is clear: in addition to mortgage, Libor and FX settlements, one should also add gold. Recall from around the time when the first DB banker hung himself: it was then that Elke Koenig, the president of Germany’s top financial regulator, Bafin, said that in addition to currency rates, manipulation of precious metals “is worse than the Libor-rigging scandal.”
...continuing:
It remains to be seen if Calogero’s death was also related to precious metals rigging although it certainly would not be surprising. What is surprising, is that slowly things are starting to fall apart at the one bank which as we won’t tire of highlighting, has a bigger pyramid of notional derivatives on its balance sheet than even JPMorgan, amounting to 20 times more than the GDP of Germany itself, and where if any internal investigation ever goes to the very top, then Europe itself, and thus the world, would be in jeopardy.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014–10-25/deutsche-bank-lawyer-and-former-sec-enforcement-attorney-found-dead-apparent-suicide
Another Deutsche Banker And Former SEC Enforcement Attorney Commits Suicide
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/25/2014
Back on January 26, a 58-year-old former senior executive at German investment bank behemoth Deutsche Bank, William Broeksmit, was found dead after hanging himself at his London home, and with that, set off an unprecedented series of banker suicides throughout the year which included former Fed officials and numerous JPMorgan traders.
Following a brief late summer spell in which there was little if any news of bankers taking their lives, as reported previously, the banker suicides returned with a bang when none other than the hedge fund partner of infamous former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Khan, Thierry Leyne, a French-Israeli entrepreneur, was found dead after jumping off the 23rd floor of one of the Yoo towers, a prestigious residential complex in Tel Aviv.
Just a few brief hours later the WSJ reported that yet another Deutsche Bank veteran has committed suicide, and not just anyone but the bank’s associate general counsel, 41 year old Calogero “Charlie” Gambino, who was found on the morning of Oct. 20, having also hung himself by the neck from a stairway banister, which according to the New York Police Department was the cause of death. We assume that any relationship to the famous Italian family carrying that last name is purely accidental.
Here is his bio from a recent conference which he attended:
Charlie J. Gambino is a Managing Director and Associate General Counsel in the Regulatory, Litigation and Internal Investigation group for Deutsche Bank in the Americas. Mr. Gambino served as a staff attorney in the United Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement from 1997 to 1999. He also was associated with the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate Meagher & Flom from 1999 to 2003. He is a frequent speaker at securities law conferences. Mr. Gambino is a member of the American Bar Association and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.
As a reminder, the other Deutsche Bank-er who was found dead earlier in the year, William Broeksmit, was involved in the bank’s risk function and advised the firm’s senior leadership; he was “anxious about various authorities investigating areas of the bank where he worked,” according to written evidence from his psychologist, given Tuesday at an inquest at London’s Royal Courts of Justice. And now that an almost identical suicide by hanging has taken place at Europe’s most systemically important bank, and by a person who worked in a nearly identical function — to shield the bank from regulators and prosecutors and cover up its allegedly illegal activities with settlements and fines — is surely bound to raise many questions.
The WSJ reports that Mr. Gambino had been “closely involved in negotiating legal issues for Deutsche Bank, including the prolonged probe into manipulation of the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, and ongoing investigations into manipulation of currencies markets, according to people familiar with his role at the bank.”
He previously was an associate at a private law firm and a regulatory enforcement lawyer from 1997 to 1999, according to his online LinkedIn profile and biographies for conferences where he spoke. But most notably, as his LinkedIn profile below shows, like many other Wall Street revolving door regulators, he started his career at the SEC itself where he worked from 1997 to 1999.
“Charlie was a beloved and respected colleague who we will miss. Our thoughts and sympathy are with his friends and family,” Deutsche Bank said in a statement.
Going back to the previous suicide by a DB executive, the bank said at the time of the inquest that Mr. Broeksmit “was not under suspicion of wrongdoing in any matter.” At the time of Mr. Broeksmit’s death, Deutsche Bank executives sent a memo to bank staff saying Mr. Broeksmit “was considered by many of his peers to be among the finest minds in the fields of risk and capital management.” Mr. Broeksmit had left a senior role at Deutsche Bank’s investment bank in February 2013, but he remained an adviser until the end of 2013. His most recent title was the investment bank’s head of capital and risk-optimization, which included evaluating risks related to complicated transactions.
A thread connecting Broeksmit to wrongdoing, however, was uncovered earlier this summer when Wall Street on Parade referenced his name in relation to the notorious at the time strategy provided by Deutsche Bank and others to allow hedge funds to avoid paying short-term capital gains taxes known as MAPS (see How RenTec Made More Than $34 Billion In Profits Since 1998: “Fictional Derivatives”)
From Wall Street on Parade:
Broeksmit’s name first emerged in yesterday’s Senate hearing as Senator Carl Levin, Chair of the Subcommittee, was questioning Satish Ramakrishna, the Global Head of Risk and Pricing for Global Prime Finance at Deutsche Bank Securities in New York. Ramakrishna was downplaying his knowledge of conversations about how the scheme was about changing short term gains into long term gains, denying that he had been privy to any conversations on the matter.
Levin than asked: “Did you ever have conversations with a man named Broeksmit?” Ramakrishna conceded that he had and that the fact that the scheme had a tax benefit had emerged in that conversation. Ramakrishna could hardly deny this as Levin had just released a November 7, 2008 transcript of a conversation between Ramakrishna and Broeksmit where the tax benefit had been acknowledged.
Another exhibit released by Levin was an August 25, 2009 email from William Broeksmit to Anshu Jain, with a cc to Ramakrishna, where Broeksmit went into copious detail on exactly what the scheme, internally called MAPS, made possible for the bank and for its client, the Renaissance Technologies hedge fund. (See Email from William Broeksmit to Anshu Jain, Released by the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.)
At one point in the two-page email, Broeksmit reveals the massive risk the bank is taking on, writing: “Size of portfolio tends to be between $8 and $12 billion long and same amount of short. Maximum allowed usage is $16 billion x $16 billion, though this has never been approached.”
Broeksmit goes on to say that most of Deutsche’s money from the scheme “is actually made by lending them specials that we have on inventory and they pay far above the regular rates for that.”
It would appear that with just months until the regulatory crackdown and Congressional kangaroo circus, Broeksmit knew what was about to pass and being deeply implicated in such a scheme, preferred to take the painless way out.
The question then is just what major regulatory revelation is just over the horizon for Deutsche Bank if yet another banker had to take his life to avoid being cross-examined by Congress under oath? For a hint we go back to another report, this time by the FT, which yesterday noted that Deutsche Bank will set aside just under €1bn towards the numerous legal and regulatory issues it faces in its third quarter results next week, the bank confirmed on Friday.
In a statement made after the close of markets, the Frankfurt-based lender said it expected to publish litigation costs of €894m when it announces its results for the July-September period on October 29.
The extra cash will add to Deutsche’s already sizeable litigation pot, where the bank has yet to be fined in connection with the London interbank rate-rigging scandal.
It is also facing fines from US authorities over alleged mortgage-backed securities misselling and sanctions violations, which have already seen rivals hit with heavy fines.
Deutsche has also warned that damage from global investigations into whether traders attempted to manipulate the foreign-exchange market could have a material impact on the bank.
The extra charge announced on Friday will bring Deutsche’s total litigation reserves to €3.1bn. The bank also has an extra €3.2bn in so-called contingent liabilities for fines that are harder to estimate.
Clearly Deutsche Bank is slowly becoming Europe’s own JPMorgan — a criminal bank whose past is finally catching up to it, and where legal fine after legal fine are only now starting to slam the banking behemoth. We will find out just what the nature of the latest litigation charge is next week when Deutsche Bank reports, but one thing is clear: in addition to mortgage, Libor and FX settlements, one should also add gold. Recall from around the time when the first DB banker hung himself: it was then that Elke Koenig, the president of Germany’s top financial regulator, Bafin, said that in addition to currency rates, manipulation of precious metals “is worse than the Libor-rigging scandal.”
It remains to be seen if Calogero’s death was also related to precious metals rigging although it certainly would not be surprising. What is surprising, is that slowly things are starting to fall apart at the one bank which as we won’t tire of highlighting, has a bigger pyramid of notional derivatives on its balance sheet than even JPMorgan, amounting to 20 times more than the GDP of Germany itself, and where if any internal investigation ever goes to the very top, then Europe itself, and thus the world, would be in jeopardy.
At this point it is probably worth reminding to what great lengths regulators would go just to make sure that Deutsche Bank would never be dragged into a major litigation scandal: recall that the chief enforcer of the SEC during the most critical period following the great crash of 2008, Robert Khuzami, worked previously from 2002 to 2009 at, drumroll, Deutsche Bank most recently as its General Counsel (see “Robert Khuzami Stands To Lose Up To $250,000 If He Pursues Action Against Deutsche Bank” and “Circle Jerk 101: The SEC’s Robert Khuzami Oversaw Deutsche Bank’s CDO, Has Recused Himself Of DB-Related Matters”). The same Khuzami who just landed a $5 million per year contract (with a 2 year guarantee) with yet another “law firm”, Kirkland and Ellis. One wonders: if and when the hammer falls on Deutsche Bank, will it perchance be defended by the same K&E and its latest prominent hire, Robert Khuzami himself?
But usually it is best to just avoid litigation altogether. Which is why perhaps sometimes it is easiest if the weakest links, those whose knowledge can implicate the people all the way at the top, quietly commit suicide in the middle of the night...
@SWAMP and Participo–
Sharp eyes–good show!
Although both of you researched the same article, I’ve included both of your contributions.
SWAMP included the entire text of the Zerohedge post.
Participo highlighted several key passages.
I am skeptical that Mr. Gambino wasn’t connected to the major crime family.
The mob has been moving into Wall Street and the financial industry for some time.
Keep up the good work,
Dave