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Tag: citibank
George Santos

Santos Was Caught On Tape Lying To Seattle Judge In 2017 Criminal Case

Serial fabulist Rep. George Santos (R-NY) reportedly lied to a Seattle judge about working at Goldman Sachs during a 2017 bail hearing for a "family friend" arrested over an ATM skimming spree, Politico reported Friday.

Santos appeared before King County Superior Court Judge Sean O'Donnell during the May 2017 arraignment of defendant Gustavo Ribeiro Trelha. Prosecutors had accused Trelha of "sophisticated" fraud for breaching almost 300 accounts in a three-day ATM skimming spree in Seattle, according to reporting by Politico and CBS News.

The future member of Congress uttered the falsehood in court after Trelha's public defender, Virginia Branham, introduced Santos — who was using his full name, George Anthony Devolder Santos, at the time — to O'Donnell, who immediately set about confirming his identity.

“So what do you do for work?” O'Donnell asked.

“I am an aspiring politician, and I work for Goldman Sachs,” Santos replied.

“You work for Goldman Sachs in New York?” O'Donnell probed, to which Santos responded, "Yup," one of many falsehoods the Long Island Republican peddled on his path to the People's House.

However, a spokesperson for Goldman Sachs, Abbey Collins, later told the New York Times, for its investigation into Santos' background, that there were no records of the newly-elected congressman ever working for the Wall Street firm. Citigroup, another marquee financial titan Santos said had employed him, also told the Times that it had no records of Santos ever working there.

“How do you know this man?” the judge asked, referring to Trelha.

“We’re family friends. Our parents know each other from Brazil,” Santos said in reply — a claim that Trelha, who was deported to Brazil after seven months behind bars in the U.S. for fraud, refuted in a phone call with Politico.

"Trelha said Santos lied about their relationship, too. Trelha, through a translator, said he met Santos in the fall of 2016 on a Facebook group for Brazilians living in Orlando, Florida, and that his mother died in 2012," the publication noted in its report Friday.

Santos is facing federal, state, and international investigations into his deceptions, and the congressman has so far resisted bipartisan calls for his resignation.

Numerous reports have covered the New York Third congressional district representative's fabulism, comprising falsehoods about everything from his education, work, and religion to his athletic ability.

In a cringy interview with British TV host Piers Morgan last Monday, Santos admitted he had been "a terrible liar" about myriad facets of his biography, fueling his 2022 campaign with falsehoods.

Mexico Arrests Entrepreneur In Fraud Case Linked To Citibank, Pemex

Mexico Arrests Entrepreneur In Fraud Case Linked To Citibank, Pemex

By Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times

MEXICO CITY — The Mexican government on Thursday announced the arrest of a wealthy entrepreneur who is accused of a multimillion-dollar fraud involving Citibank and the giant Mexican oil monopoly.

Amado Yanez Osuna was placed under arrest and will be charged with fraud, the federal attorney general’s office said in a statement. He won’t go to jail immediately, however, because he is in hospital recovering from surgery. There, officials said, he is under police guard.

Yanez was head of the Oceanografia firm, which supplied services to Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, the state oil company. According to prosecutors, Oceanografia fraudulently billed the firm for work not done and took out loans from the Mexican bank Banamex based on those false premises. Banamex is a subsidiary of Citibank.

Those fraudulent loans could total $400 million, possibly more, prosecutors say.

Banamex recently fired 11 employees in connection with the case, apparently for failing to detect the fraud. Citibank also fired an employee said to be involved.

The scandal comes as the administration of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto is promoting a major overhaul of the country’s dwindling oil-production industry. Laws that would open up the long-closed oil and gas business here are in their final stages of debate in Congress.

The president’s ability to clean up these alleged misdoings would go a long way in assuring international investors wary of endemic corruption in much of Mexican business and industry, experts say.

Michael Corbat, chief executive of Citigroup Inc., said Thursday during an investors’ conference in New York that employees missed “tell-tale” signs of the fraud, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Yanez was under a form of house arrest before Thursday’s order from the attorney general’s office.

Photo by bruceg1001/Flickr