Goldman Sachs's (Partial) Rap Sheet

Zero Hedge has compiled a list of the crimes and misdemeanors of the TBTF banks in the US.  Goldman's participation in this criminal rap sheet includes:

betting against their own investment products; robo-signing; mafia-type behavior; front running with high frequency trading; off-balance sheet items; rotten securitization of sub-prime mortgages; insider trading; understating debt levels used to fund securities trades (2009) and, therefore, excessive borrowing to fund investments; perjury; civil lawsuits re securitization by SEC; other civil lawsuits; "malignant, symbiotic relationship with government;" fraud by managers (accounting control fraud); etc.

Jaw-Dropping Crimes of the Big Banks
By George Washington - Zero Hedge

Here are just some of the improprieties by big banks:

• Funding the Nazis

• Laundering money for terrorists

• Financing illegal arms deals, and funding the manufacture of cluster bombs (and see this and this) and other arms which are banned in most of the world

• Launching a coup against the President of the United States

• Handling money for rogue military operations

• Laundering money for drug cartels. See this, this, this, this and this (indeed, drug dealers kept the banking system afloat during the depths of the 2008 financial crisis)

• Engaging in mafia-style big-rigging fraud against local governments. See this, this and this

• Shaving money off of virtually every pension transaction they handled over the course of decades, stealing collectively billions of dollars from pensions worldwide. Details here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here

• Manipulating gold prices … on a daily basis

• Charging “storage fees” to store gold bullion … without even buying or storing any gold . And raiding allocated gold accounts

• Committing massive and pervasive fraud both when they initiated mortgage loans and when they foreclosed on them (and see this)

• Pledging the same mortgage multiple times to different buyers. See this, this, this, this and this. This would be like selling your car, and collecting money from 10 different buyers for the same car

• Cheating homeowners by gaming laws meant to protect people from unfair foreclosure

• Committing massive fraud in an $800 trillion dollar market which effects everything from mortgages, student loans, small business loans and city financing

• Manipulating the hundred trillion dollar derivatives market

• Engaging in insider trading of the most important financial information

• Pushing investments which they knew were terrible, and then betting against the same investments to make money for themselves. See this, this, this, this and this

• Engaging in unlawful “frontrunning” to manipulate markets. See this, this, this, this, this and this

• Engaging in unlawful “Wash Trades” to manipulate asset prices. See this, this and this

• Otherwise manipulating markets. And see this

• Participating in various Ponzi schemes. See this, this and this

• Charging veterans unlawful mortgage fees

• Helping the richest to illegally hide assets

• Cooking their books (and see this)

• Bribing and bullying ratings agencies to inflate ratings on their risky investments

• Violently cracking down on peaceful protesters

Read the rest of the article here