Check Out This TARP-Based Scam

[NashVegas]

The Securities and Exchange Commission today filed suit against Franklin resident Gordon B. Grigg and his financial advisory company, ProTrust Management Inc., claiming they defrauded at least 27 clients out of roughly $6.5 million. The agency says Grigg and ProTrust have consented to enforcement actions in the case.

What sets this instance of alleged fraud apart from other recent cases is the story Grigg was selling to investors, according to the SEC. The complaint says he solicited money from people with the promise that it would be invested in government-backed commercial paper and bank debt as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program that Congress authorized last year.

The financial market regulator says Grigg made no such investments, though he issued account statements to clients showing their funds as having been invested in the TARP-related bonds. It says he also "falsely claimed to have partnerships and other business relationships with several of the nation's top investment firms."

http://www.nashvillepost.com/news/2009/1/28/sec_goes_after_franklin_man_for_tarprelated_fraud


What I glean from this? TARP was an even bigger scam than we thought. We thought (or were led to believe) that TARP was about getting money to banks so they could loan in. Instead, TARP turns out to have been a sort of FDIC for the investor class. At least, that's how it looks to me.

[Thrill]

1. Looks like Obama's new SEC Chair is wasting no time taking these crooks down

[Lasher]

2. The pre-Obama TARP program is going to really get ugly.

There are reasons why Paulson wouldn't tell where the money was going. And the amounts boggle the mind. Amazing, how all that money could have been handed out with apparently very little accountability.

[NashVegas]

3. I Guess It's Possible

This guy was blowing smoke out of his ass in the first place. Are there any other indicators out there that TARP was something that could be sold to individual investors?