Transcripts For ALJAZ The Men Who Stole The World 20240713 :

President wilson arrow and its core base of supporters keep downplaying the effect of the pandemic across the country but now even the governments had to admit as it has. As it did yesterday that the real face of the pandemic might be much worse than what you fishel numbers are showing the government for example is saying that there according to their account there could be a least another 11000 dead that have been unaccounted for so far that the government believes might be related to the coveys 19 but for the lack of testing theres no way to confirm if indeed these people have also died covies in 19 and under now another number that i think tells us a lot about that is the fact that the government says that this year so far there have been 5 times the number of people who have been hospitalized for respect respect at thore issues but less than half of those have been tested to see if indeed they have coronavirus so thats the situation in brazil we also understand that a number of laborious stories are sitting idle that there is a big backlog in the testing for lack of materials but they are to the role of war so narrow of the president giving the fact that this is not his priority has meant that its been difficult for brasil or more difficult to get those material and try to speed up the testing which would help to to get a more clear picture. One of 5 iranian tankers delivering millions of dollars worth of fuel has entered venezuelan waters safely despite u. S. Warnings tehran threatened to retaliate if the u. S. Tried to stop them deliveries are expected to ease fuel shortages in venezuela but there in defiance of sanctions imposed by washington on both countries forces fighting for libyas internationally recognized government say theyve captured 3 military camps in the suburbs of tripoli from all over to leave the hospital 2 of them are in the southern outskirts a 3rd is in the east the games are being seen as another setback to have tons of yearLong Campaign to capture the capital the taliban afghanistans president of announced a 3 day cease fire for the ied holiday ashraf ghani has called in the military to all of the cease fire the u. S. Has welcomed the surprise announcement as a momentous opportunity that should not be missed. Egyptian president sisi has pardoned more than 3000 prisoners to coincide with the holiday among them is a hit man who murdered the lebanese singer suzanne to me min dubai in 2008 on the orders of former egypt and moustapha now activist journalist or Political Prisoners have been released. Theyve been protests across spain calling for coronavirus restrictions to be lifted more quickly spains Prime Minister has promised of the country to reopen to International Tours in july but there are sanchez also announced the top flight football will restart on june 8th lockdown instructions are gradually loosening but a state of emergency is still in force. And Gazas Health Ministry has reported the territories 1st virus death Officials Say the 77 year old woman had been under quarantine after returning from egypt the United Nations has worn the red corona Virus Outbreak in gaza could be disastrous given the high poverty rates and Weak Health System the coastal strip has been under an israeli blockade since 2007. Those were the headlines the news continues here on the aljazeera off the men who stole the world stage and thats a watching. It was july 1st 2001. 1000000 humbert german at the time. I was in my flat with my wife that i had just married. 2 men came to the door. Of the not recognized did not answer the door. Minutes later i left the building walked to the car and 2 and then a 5 towards the Police Officers showed up in front of me and in german basically identified themselves and said they were there interpol f. B. I. A warrant come with us. That was not at all what he was expecting obviously he looked at his wife and blew her a kiss and it was pretty sure he would never see her again. Thats a feeling of total fear because you have the total unknown of what the future holds. Elevator was taken on a plane to chicago. Which is where he had been criminally charged. And entered the United States Justice System which is a really scary place to be. Was facing charges of ups gone down with 460000000. 00 from the f. B. I. For fraud. My name is Philip James Baker and im the former managing the 1000000000. 00 vested fund collapsed during the financial crisis. My story is a rise and fall to redemption story. Ive been rich. Ive been on the top. Ive been behind bars. I know what it is to be called a financial criminal. I did my guilt. Free. And i want to speak out. Because of what i saw because ive been there i can tell that if we do nothing. Everything can happen again. They had no consequence. The titans of wall street basically faced nothing. For my life i went to prison and. Some people would say well you know what you did wrong its fair its just. Argument could be i agree. But what about the people in the titans of wall street. The business started in the basement of my parents and this company grew to be a 1000000000. 00 company. It was. Set up a hedge fund designed to trade in commodities. Prices of oil coal things like that it was a market or he was the client. He was the one who would go out to wealthy individuals or institutions and get them put their money with. Clients for Global Investment banks from around the world Goldman Sachs bank of canada. H. S. B. C. Bank of nova scotia. U. B. S. We offer it in close to 40 Different Countries around the world brazil. Japan and hong kong obviously throughout europe. Offshore accounts. I was living the dream. Werent worried about anything but in my particular instance i had something to worry about. All sorts of investors all over the world were very eager to put their money with him because he was generating very good returns and thats what investors want he turned out to be doing Something Else which was he was misappropriating the investors money and the investors thought they were achieving these excellent returns in reality they were not full baker and his partners were essentially making it up they were lie. The 2nd thing and in some ways the more damaging issue is that as they sought to recruit additional investors new investors which were essential because they needed to paper over the last the money that theyd already lost they were in their prospectuses in the documents they provided to investors to show investors how well theyve known they were lying there to it when they were saying instead of having lost 50 percent of their assets in the 1st year they were saying oh look at us weve got this long track record of very impressive returns. They were lying not only about the returns but they were lying about the longevity of the fund so they were saying they had i believe a 14 year track record with just wasnt true that they had not been trading for 14 years. Trading results were falsely reported and hence that was a fraud you can do that one penny not reported properly is wrong. The victims were everyone who invested with. Investors who lost their money initially investors to put their money in after the initial fraud occurred and so there were hundreds of millions of dollars that vanished as a result of this. Ive been asked why did i break the law i wanted to protect what i had money family power of a bit of business. But to me how many people say no i dont want the power i dont want the money. And walk away. Would you say that you are right good of women were this. Very interesting when you see your name. Philip james baker versus the United States of america. Its overwhelming. Then you face the assistant u. S. Attorney as hes looking you in the eye and when you go through that circumstance there are no words that really can describe the depths of the loneliness and feel of the moment. Ultimately. Completed a plea deal with the United States government. I was sentenced to 20 years. For wire for a. Bill because a criminal is he the type of financial mastermind that caused the financial crisis absolutely not this is a guy who is was not very sophisticated about his crime was not very. Malicious about his crime and but he admitted that he committed a crime this is a classic example of where the Justice Department its a shortcut they want to generate publicity for themselves as going after financial drugs and Everyone Wants them to do that. And yet time and time again the people that theyre going after are the little mini. Theyre going after the big fish are not going after the bankers for the most part theyre certainly not going after the Senior Executives at the banks or other big Financial Institutions they were the Decision Makers leading up to the financial crisis. 10 years after the financial crisis except iceland. How many white collar criminals are behind bars. From Credit Suisse is the only bank of wall street to go to jail related to the crisis. Just a few 1000000 not really big fish not a true. Only one big bank Top Executive name. The number of people convicted of crimes linked to the crisis in the u. S. According the Financial Times 324 people from main street. Wall street chief executives have been to prison. Even though there is today absolutely no doubt that wall street executives and politicians were complicit in creating the crisis. This is the story of how massive global banks made billions. By packaging toxic Mortgage Loans and Financial Products and sold them all around the world. The american politicians pulled the trigger. It all started with a political philosophical or a grand admission of allowing everyone to own a home. Our government is supporting homeownership. Because it is good for america. It is good for families. It is good for our economy. Part of the American Dream that was pushed by you know all sorts of president s clinton bush whatever for years was homeownership. I thought he kept Interest Rates very low in order to make money. There used to bore. Wall street and politicians had agreed to work together. To wall street with the pursuit of profits. The politicians with the pursuit of government interference on economic growth. Which could be turned into election victories for years to come. This was the beginning of the housing bubble. When the bubbles expanding everybody is aware. Everybody is a genius. The lenders bank money the Real Estate Development Companies Make money the construction workers make money Everybody Loves a bubble. But this was a devils deal between politicians and wall street. The setting to a perfect storm. Of what happens in a booth is lenders take more and more risk and borrowers take for the race because they both think things are safer than they appear to be and one of the way they persuade themselves. To take more risk is through financial innovations. Wall street created the risky loans called subprime to americans. To people afford to pay the bank loans. That they had just applied for. The public were given access to 0 low income and even no job. So if you wanted the absolute craziness it would be the ninja loan so ninja stands for no income no job and no assets and. The idea is that you would lend money to people that gave you no information about whether they had any income with the at any job. At any assets. It will allow you to grow enormously because now you can loan in the us context to ands of millions of people. Able or or. How many people out there are there who cant. Get alone. Tens of millions of people in the United States tens of millions of people in france in these circumstances. This goes under the general category of predation in the United States the people that were targeted for the worst loans were overwhelmingly a combination of the 4 demographic factors blacks latinos the elderly and females that is incredibly and so why almost everywhere in the world these things are crimes. These toxic loans became a gold rush for the whole u. S. Banking financial industry. All the major actors of wall street want a piece of a song crime part of. Goldman sachs Lehman Brothers Morgan Stanley Merrill Lynch their sterns j. P. Morgan citigroup and so. The frenzy extended itself when loans were sought by the public by falsifying their own financial situation on loan applications. Therefore the public and banks were complicit committing bank fraud. My name is richard cohen. I was Senior Vice President and business chief underwriter for citigroup. At the time citi group was the largest bank in that. It was my responsibility to make sure that the 90000000000. 00 a year that we were purchasing Mortgage Loans that were rejuvenated by other banks and Mortgage Companies these maps are policies standards. In early 2006. I discovered that over 60 percent of these mortgages did not meet our guidelines they were by definition defective when i discovered this in this was june of 2006. Silly me i thought it was my job i started issuing warnings because i was supposed to make sure that these met our policy guidelines and i sent email i put it in my weekly report i made Committee Presentations i mean im not a shy guy i cornered people in the hallways at the water fountain and everyone say yeah yeah we we we know we need to fix that but nothing would happen. And through 20062007 the volumes kept increasing and the rate of defective mortgages increased from 60 to in excess of 80 percent it was 80 percent of these mortgages that we were in turn selling and giving our representations and warranties that they were they met our policy guidelines did not meet our policy guidelines this is misrepresentation that is true as a matter of fact it was for all. Ive seen plenty of alone documents with my own eyes that were falsified and the borrower still signed them as if they were correct. People who were typically hairdressers gardeners and such reporting incomes of over 100000. 00 a year now their actual incomes would be in the range of about 16000. 00. In those cases their income is inflated by it 6 times. You would have waiters in a restaurant showing that they made 150000. 00 a year i mean that clearly is. It is out of line but nonetheless the loan type permitted that to happen. Richard bowen and his staff very carefully very professionally are documenting. That these loans their reps and warranties are false. But city is overwhelmingly turning around in reselling these loans. Citi group did not want to know because if it looked at these places it couldnt possibly continue. To use them. It was all about generating the revenue. The people who worked on wall street conceived of the idea of securitizing mortgages packaging mortgages up into securities they actually arranged to buy the mortgages they would package them up into securities they would file documents with the Security Exchange commission that they had to be able to call them securities and then they would sell them to investors all around the world and all along the way they were making money was almost like it was a perfect product that anybody who touched a mortgage i made money off of it. November the 2nd of 2007 sitting at my kitchen table. I put together an email. And i simply emailed to Robert Reuben who the next day on sunday at the Board Meeting was named chairman of the board. I also sent it to the chief risk officer the chief Financial Officer in the chain of order. I said urgent need immediately find the interest issues i put that in all capital letters. I call for an outside investigation i said come in here from the outside and investigate what is going on here because everybody here already knows and no one contacted me throughout november throughout the summer there was no contact no one said a word. Will tell you that that particular point in time. Before i would even get in my car. I was doing what they do in the books im looking underneath my car in a good location. It was a very frightening time i. Said you were the 6th i received there was an email that went out with regard to reorganization. And in that reorganization i was stripped of all my underwriting responsibilities that next week i was put on the ministry to believe and told him not to come back to the but. Theres a wave of sentiment around the world people actually want accountability from the people who are running their countries and i think often peoples voices are not good because thats not part of the mainstream news narrative. Obviously we cover the big stories and report on the big events that are going on but we also tell the stories of people who generally dont have a voice i mean when i was a child my thats never be afraid to put a hand up not a question and i think thats what out of syria really does the ask the questions to people who should be accountable and also to get people to give their view of whats going on. A unique form of protest by a palestinian artist using a symbol of National Identity to create postage and passport stamps. But as for somebody who is not a free donate your life can fly anywhere sending a message of resistance about the arab israeli conflict out of the sort of come to palestine. Palestine sunbed th