From petty thieves and shoplifters to world-class embezzlers, it seems like the world is going to hell in a hand basket! You can’t shake a stick nowadays without reading about some company busted for fraud and embezzlement.
As a kid Leslie Victor was the big-time con-artists stealing as much as $50 million from clients back in the 1980s. Now that is chump change.
The following story from http://www.thisismoney.co.uk brings a new meaning to the term “insider information.”
Biggest British Theft Case Ever!!
Asil Nadir secretly bought shares in his own company Polly Peck in order to bolster its share price. The Turkish-Cypriot businessman is accused of 13 counts of theft in what is the biggest theft case ever to go to trial in Britain.
Nadir’s ‘covert purchasing of Polly Peck International shares’ is bad enough, in addition he stole almost £150million ($250,000 USD).
When Nadir joined Polly Peck in the early 1980s it was an ailing textiles firm which he transformed into a conglomerate that housed the Del Monte fruit business and the Sansui electronics firm.
Following the collapse he jumped a £3million bail and fled in 1993 to Northern Cyprus, which has no extraditions treaty with the UK, but returned in August 2010 stating he wanted to clear his name. The 70-year old has pleaded not guilty to the 13 charges, which include theft of £33.1million and £2.5million from the company between 1987 and 1990.
Under Nadir’s leadership the firm’s market value ballooned from £300,000 to £1.7billion, and an investment of £1,000 from the late 1970s would have been worth £1million at its peak.
But Nadir transferred millions out of Polly Peck in the years preceding its collapse. Its demise hit pension funds and small shareholders. Does that sound familiar?
Nadir is a political nightmare having curried favor with Britain’s elite politicians for more than a decade.
Nadir’s fall embarrassed John Major’s Conservative government after it emerged that a Tory minister, Michael Mates, had given Nadir a watch engraved ‘Don’t let the buggers get you down’.