Another Day, Another Weak Multi-Million Dollar Bank Settlement for Massive Financial Wrongdoing

Let’s recap a few of the summer’s bank-related headlines.  We’ve heard about top financial industries laundering money in order to arm America’s adversaries, employing racist lending practices  (see growing list of DOJ settlements with BoA, Wells, and GFI), colluding to fix a key interest rate (LIBOR), and mistreatment of financial fraud whistle blowers by government agencies (here and here).

Yesterday’s a Chicago Tribune article highlighted Citigroup’s settlement where Citigroup will pay $25 million dollars to placate tens of thousands of workers and senior citizens in Ann Arbor, MI and Kansas City, MO whose pension funds were stolen in a massive Citigroup investment scheme.  While $25 million sounds like a lot of money, the scheme was a $1.88 billion dollar fraud, so that works out to a penalty of $13.25 per $1,000 of financial fraud.  The article mentions several other cases that have recently been settled in a similar fashion.

This is what has happened to the retirement savings of tens of millions of Americans across the nation.  Our hard earned pension funds and 401k investments have been exposed to and depleted by a massive Wall Street scheme.  Stay tuned for news of more of these settlements.

Read the Chicago Tribune article, Citigroup to Settle MBS Suit for $24.9 Million, here.