Business News
Obama expands inter-agency task force to combat financial crimes
Nov 17, 2009, 17:00 GMT
Washington - US President Barack Obama on Tuesday sought to bolster efforts to route out financial crimes that have cost billions of dollars and fuelled public anger during the country's deep economic downturn.
Obama created an inter-agency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force that brings together a series of government agencies to improve coordination. It builds on an existing Corporate Fraud Task Force set up by former president George W Bush in 2002 in the wake of the Enron and WorldCom accounting scandals.
While the financial crisis of the past year has been driven largely by excessive risk taking rather than overt crimes, the Obama administration has been looking to crack down on fraud that may have contributed.
Billionaire financier Bernard Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison for running a 65-billion-dollar pyramid 'Ponzi' scheme. More recently the Justice Department launched a major crackdown on insider trading, charging 20 people including Sri Lankan billionaire investor Raj Rajaratnam.
'Mortgage, securities, and corporate fraud schemes have eroded the public's confidence in the nation's financial markets and have led to a growing sentiment that Wall Street does not play by the same rules as Main Street,' Attorney General Eric Holder said.
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