By Matt Agorist
In many other countries, excluding the United States, corrupt bankers are often brought to task by their respective governments. The most recent example of a corrupt banker being held accountable comes our of Spain, in which the former head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Rodrigo Rato was sentenced to four years and six months behind bars.
According to the AFP, Spain’s National Court, which deals with corruption and financial crime cases, said he had been found guilty of embezzlement when he headed up Caja Madrid and Bankia, at a time when both groups were having difficulties.
Rato, who is tied to a slew of other allegations was convicted and sentenced for misusing €12m between 2003 and 2012 — sometimes splashing out at the height of Spain’s economic crisis, according to the AFP.
The people of Spain were outraged over the scandal as it was discovered during the height of a severe financial crisis in which banks were receiving millions in taxpayer dollars. Bankia was eventually nationalized and given 22 billion in public money.
Although he was sentenced, Rato, who is also a former Spanish economy minister, remains at liberty pending a possible appeal because of highly connected elite status.
Rato was brought down in a massive effort by Spain to get rid of corruption within the banking system. The problem had gotten so bad, that Spain decided to clean house, and 65 people, include Rato, were brought to task.
According to the AFP, they were accused of having paid for personal expenses with credit cards put at their disposal by both Caja Madrid and Bankia, without ever justifying them or declaring them to tax authorities. These expenses included petrol for their cars, supermarket shopping, holidays, luxury bags or parties in nightclubs.
According to the indictment, Rato maintained the “corrupt system” established by his predecessor Miguel Blesa when he took the reins of Caja Madrid in 2010, reports the AFP. He then replicated the system when he took charge of Bankia, a group born in 2011 out of the merger of Caja Madrid with six other savings banks, prosecutors said.
According to the report:
Rato was economy minister and deputy prime minister in the conservative government of Jose Maria Aznar from 1996 to 2004, before going on to head up the IMF until 2007. His subsequent career as a banker was short-lived — from 2010 to 2012 — but apart from the credit cards case, it also led to another banking scandal considered the country’s biggest ever.
Thousands of small-scale investors lost their money after they were persuaded to convert their savings to shares ahead of the flotation of Bankia in 2011, with Rato at the reins. Less than a year later, he resigned as it became known that Bankia was in dire straits.
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The state injected billions of euros but faced with the scale of Bankia’s losses and trouble at other banks, it asked the EU for a bailout for the banking sector and eventually received €41bn.
Rato and others were probed, accused of misleading small investors in the listing of Bankia, which has since paid out €1.2bn in compensation.
To highlight the utter corruption within the banking cartel that is the IMF, Rato is the third former chief to be ousted for illegal activity.
For those who don’t remember, Rato’s successor, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was tried in 2015 on pimping charges in a lurid sex scandal. Naturally, he was acquitted — in spite of the fact that he admitted to engaging in illicit sex with prostitutes at a series of orgies that supposedly took place at the Hotel Carlton in the northern French city of Lille. The court sided with DSK and agreed that he had no idea the women he repeatedly filled the orgies with were being paid.
Christine Lagarde, who took over from Strauss-Kahn and is the current IMF chief, In December, was found guilty of “negligence” for approving a massive government payout to business tycoon Bernard Tapie during her tenure as French finance minister.
Despite being found guilty of corruption, Lagarde was not sentenced to a single day in jail. She has since been meeting with Trump’s Goldman Sachs-connected Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, noting that they’ve had “some very positive discussions.”
Matt Agorist is the co-founder of TheFreeThoughtProject.com, where this article first appeared. He is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Follow @MattAgorist. and now on Steemit
As the swamp is being gradually drained, we need to do the same here in US, these scenarios have gone on for decades, we need to be thankful for President Trump for his pulling the plug on the Globalists as they are infested everywhere on the planet. The sound of the banksters and the elitist swirling down the drain can only signal a return to consciousness and balance and will help each country to “find their center” and in doing so bring harmony and sanity to humanity, this is the true global agenda, Freedom from the parallel agendas of the globalists that have been hidden far too long that steal from the people and play these illicit games with our money. Take care, Lightwire News
Sorry to say it but Im not nearly so sure anything even close to a real swamp cleaning will happen. Maybe a little around the edges, just for show and hoodwink. keith
Please send me a link for the site “Lightwire News”
Hi Guy, good to see in the activistpost, haven’t been here long, I have the .com for lightwire news, I just haven’t set it up as a site, I will get on that pronto, for now you can catch me on this site, your comments reach my email, thank you, Lightwire
Just as an adjunct to my previous post, this is a microdot of information of what to look for in the globalist agendas. Quote: We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”
William Casey CIA Director 1981!!!!!!!!! From people who somewhat represent us? So, prior to 81 and up to now, we have been shoveled a pile of lies and deceit perpetuated by the parallel agendas deep in our own government so they can turn our representative government into the swamp it is presently and from the picture I took this quote from, Casey was smiling about it? Take care, Lightwire News
“Rato was sentenced to four years and six months”
Why so little? Should be 46 years with no early release except for burial.
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Aint that the truth, damn right they need to be really tried and senticed. keith
Also make [their] usury illegal and give fierce penalties
The US states need to “Nullify” the banks. Follow Iceland and the entire planet could return their countries economies into their own hands as opposed to that of the Reptilian Overlords and their gatekeeper humans. States have the ability to nullify corporate charters, make their own currency and arrest federal officials via the Sheriffs departments. Citizens can react as a matter of self-defense as your money is your means of survival in the industrial age.
I dont know what is at the controling top but they need to be dealt with by the men of the USA. Waiting for the politians will never work. Our problem is waiting and waiting. We need to take a stand at least 3million armed men and then many more would also be willing to stand and die if need be. keith
The sooner all the zentral banks close the doors the sooner a thousand years of peace and prosperity will commence.
DRAIN the SWAMP.
END the FED and all zentral bankz.
We all must join together to kill the Creature from Jeckyll Island.
Taxpayers in the United States have yet to see Big Banksters, criminally responsible for the financial crash and the ruin of so many Americans, brought to any semblance of justice for their wrongdoing.
The big banks and wall street were rewarded for crashing the economy in 2008 by criminal Paulson who stole $1.4+ trillion from the American people. Had the 1.4 trillion gone to infrastructure the public would have benefited and the wall street crooks would have been in the soup line – the way it should have been.
Hang ’em all, and hang ’em high
Hmmm, these guys must have been chosen by the globalists as scapegoats in order to give the appearance of justice.
They use the word “scandal” to describe a massive criminal activity. A “scandal” is when you find out that Sanders had was having an affair with Hillaroid. Stealing Billions is criminal and calling it a scandal is like calling a road side bomb a firecracker.