And yet all are touched by serious investigations for corruption of the markets. And the lumbering, wobbling derivatives market represents one possibly interesting intersection of the events.
But even if they are not related, and are mere coincidences, it is telling perhaps that the financial industry is so generally foul that even random deaths and disappearances are all in proximity of market-fixing, price rigging, and white collar investigations for corruption.
And this is our financial system, which touches every part of our lives, every product, every day, man, woman, and child.
A Rash of Deaths and a Missing Reporter – With Ties to Wall Street Investigations
By Pam Martens
February 3, 2014
In a span of four days last week, two current executives and one recently retired top ranking executive of major financial firms were found dead. Both media and police have been quick to label the deaths as likely suicides. Missing from the reports is the salient fact that all three of the financial firms the executives worked for are under investigation for potentially serious financial fraud.
The deaths began on Sunday, January 26. London police reported that William Broeksmit, a top executive at Deutsche Bank who had retired in 2013, had been found hanged in his home in the South Kensington section of London. The day after Broeksmit was pronounced dead, Eric Ben-Artzi, a former risk analyst turned whistleblower at Deutsche Bank, was scheduled to speak at Auburn University in Alabama on his allegations that Deutsche had hid $12 billion in losses during the financial crisis with the knowledge of senior executives. Two other whistleblowers have brought similar charges against Deutsche Bank.
Deutsche Bank is also under investigation by global regulators for potentially rigging the foreign exchange markets – an action similar to the charges it settled in 2013 over its traders’ involvement in the rigging of the interest rate benchmark, Libor.
Just two days after Broeksmit’s death, on Tuesday, January 28, a 39-year old American, Gabriel Magee, a Vice President at JPMorgan in London, plunged to his death from the roof of the 33-story European headquarters of JPMorgan in Canary Wharf. According to Magee’s LinkedIn profile, he was involved in “Technical architecture oversight for planning, development, and operation of systems for fixed income securities and interest rate derivatives...”
Read the entire story here.
Related: On Death and Derivatives
Family of Missing WSJ Reporter 'Waiting for a Miracle'
Financial whistleblower Eric Ben-Artzi speaks at Auburn University
