Harry Markopolos - Financial Fraud

Harry Markopolos detected fraud with Bernie Madoff.  There is now a documentary based on this story called "Chasing Madoff".

Here is an interview of Markopolos on CNBC exposing other frauds.

Foreign exchange (forex) bank custody fraud:  State Street and Bank of New York stole billions of dollars in pension funds around the country.  They stole 0.3% of every transaction.  It's a 50 state case and it's going to be many billions before it's all over. 

Forex trades $4.7 trillion every day with no government regulation and everything is over the counter...perfect recipe for fraud. 

Foreign exchange can cost 0.03% to the bank.  When you're in Europe and you use your credit card, the bank charges you 3% for the currency exchange.  The markup is 2.97%. 

Twenty percent of Bank of New York's net income (not revenue) is from foreign exchange over-charges.

On their contract, they said it was free...all in cost, no charge, best execution, straight through processing, real-time execution.  They've back dated the trades up to 20 hours a day.  That's not real-time.

Therefore, when you use your credit card, check to see how much your bank charges you for foreign exchange.