A LOCAL man with family connections to politics in the area has lost his job at US financial services firm Northern Trust’s Dublin office after the company uncovered a rogue scheme, which saw over €200,000 vanish.
According to a report on Sunday, a senior Sinn Féin figure is thought to have helped in uncovering the operation.
In a statement to the Sunday Independent at the weekend, the company said: “Northern Trust can confirm that An Garda Siochana is investigating an alleged fraudulent action. The action affects a small number of individuals and, based on our understanding, at present amounts to approximately €200,000.”
Sources told the newspaper that the money was invested by a number of individuals and that Sinn Féin-connected businessmen have also been approached by the “lone wolf” businessman.
Files obtained by the Sunday Independent show that the Northern Trust employee persuaded a number of businessmen to invest in an unsanctioned scheme.
This scheme was marketed as a basket of different shares, funds and index trackers. Projections for the scheme forecast returns of up to 180 per cent over a year. It is understood that at least one of the investors paid over large sums in cash to the rogue trader.
The paperwork for the scheme was laced with charts and projections and financial mumbo jumbo. The fund’s strategy was to “actively avail of market movements such as global timing, index futures tracking and index constituent additions and removal”.
Investors in the scheme were kept updated on its performance via emails from an official Northern Trust account and through correspondence sent out through the Northern Trust postroom. The monthly investor updates showed enormous returns with the most recent note from April 30, 2013, detailing how a €50,000 investment was worth €69,351.58, up 38.7 per cent in less than a year.
Source: Sinn Féin link to Northern Trust rogue trader’s scam (Sunday Independent)
