Exclusive: MF Global mixed funds, transferred abroad

(Reuters) - Regulators investigating the collapse of MF Global have determined that the firm combined money between securities and futures accounts owned by customers, and transferred funds outside the country to at least one entity, a source said on Friday. "The further we get into (the investigation) the more complex it is ... but we're making progress," the source said, adding that the commingling and transferring of money is making it harder for regulators to determine what money belongs where.

MF Global took futures segregated money and put it into the account for customer securities, essentially mixing futures and securities that were both owned by customers, said an official familiar with the matter.

Until now, it was believed that only customer futures accounts were affected.

The source also told Reuters that MF Global had been using customer funds for "several days if not weeks" rather than just a few days before the firm collapsed.

Regulators had previously thought the firm was using customer funds on the Thursday and Friday before it filed for bankruptcy on October 31.

CME Group, the Chicago exchange where MF Global traded, said it had reviewed the company's books a week before the bankruptcy and found no issues with the customer money.

If MF Global started improperly dipping into its customers' accounts long before the firm's collapse, the allegation would raise questions of why the regulators and auditors failed to spot such behavior.

Congress has already started asking questions about potential lapses in regulatory oversight of MF Global. The pressure on regulators would only increase if MF Global turns out to have misused customer funds over an extended period of time.

"Establishing the specifics of what happened is key to figuring out how the system failed and how to fix it going forward," Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa said in a statement on Thursday. "Congress will need to keep drilling down."

MF Global collapsed in late October after the firm was forced to reveal that it had made a $6.3 billion bet on European sovereign debt.

Read more at link http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/03/us-mfglobal-funds-idUSTRE7B203J20111203

www.huffingtonpost.com


Seven banks that helped MF Global Holdings Ltd sell bonds were sued by pension funds who said the bonds' offering prospectuses concealed problems that led to the futures brokerage's collapse.

The lawsuit was filed Friday afternoon in Manhattan federal court against units of Bank of America Corp , Citigroup Inc , Deutsche Bank AG , Goldman Sachs Group Inc , Jefferies Group Inc , JPMorgan Chase & Co and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc .

Other defendants include several officials associated with MF Global, including former Chief Executive Jon Corzine.

Many people will think, "Oh, just another long, drawn-out lawsuit that will go nowhere."

Think again.

An excerpt from Benjamin Fulford on Nov. 8:

Both behind the scenes and in public, the world’s law enforcement agencies continue to close in on the criminal cabal from all directions. The big lawsuit expected next week against the cabal has now obtained as evidence something known as the Book of Maklumat. This is a book that details the historical ownership of much of the world’s gold by a group of Asian royal families. They also have copies of the original cash certificates and evidence of how this money was transferred to the custodianship of the Government of United States for the use on behalf of the international community. This evidence is icing on the cake in a lawsuit that will prove the private owners of the Federal Reserve Board stole this money and have been using it illegally for over 50 years.

Also, he was right about the stunning insider trading report on 60 Minutes earlier this week:

An excerpt from Oct. 24:

The corporate media cartel is also falling apart. As mentioned earlier Rupert Murdoch’s Fox TV and other outlets have begun exposing information, such as the legal actions against attorney general Eric Holder, that other networks are withholding. Now it turns out the Sumner Redstone’s CBS network is interviewing a White Dragon Society member for an upcoming 60 minutes episode as part of an expose of the high-level fraud that has been taking place at the very tip-top of the global financial system (he will not be identified by the network as a White Dragon).