Are the "Perp Walks" Finally Coming to Wall Street?



fbi logo and the wall street signAre the "perp walks" finally coming to Wall Street?

FBI Deputy Director John Pistole confirmed earlier today that the FBI currently has "more than" 2,000 open investigations into mortgage fraud, and another 566 into corporate fraud.

Pistole went on to say that 43 of the corporate fraud investigations are "directly related to the current financial crisis". He also said that the FBI opened 36 new corporate fraud investigations and 200 new mortgage fraud investigations over the past couple of weeks, and that he expects this "trend to continue".

Given the severity of the economic mess that we currently find ourselves in, many expected that heads would be rolling in no time. Aside from a couple of names (namely, Bernard Madoff), no one of any note in the financial world has been tossed into jail since the beginning of the meltdown.

Mr. Pistole also said that they are investigating companies that "everybody knows about", so you can safely assume that he is referring to companies such as AIG, Citigroup and others.

In the wake of the AIG bonus scandal, the American public wants to see some heads start to roll. They want to see CEOs, CFOs and other major players start to head to jail.

The big question is: does the FBI possess the resources to thoroughly investigate all of these cases, or will some be ignored and forgotten? Pistole already claimed that the current caseload is straining the FBI's resources, and he expects the number of cases to continue to rise.

It will be interesting to see if people start getting thrown in jail, or if they'll be able to skate through this collapse scot-free.

Source: WSJ - FBI Ramps Up Probes of Financial, Mortgage Fraud

Filed under: The Economic Meltdown | Stock Market Scandals

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