DRAGHI IMPLICATED AS ITALY FACES CYPRUS TEMPLATE

Snake hit by rake: Draghi rumours of malpractice in 1990s and 2012 resurface…looking more solid

The Slog: A report submitted earlier this year to the Corte dei Conti, Italy’s state auditors, suggests not only that Italy faces a potentially massive derivatives hit, but also that Mario Draghi may be personally implicated in those and other frauds. In particular, several appear to have been central to Italy gaining entry to the eurozone in 1999….based on clearly falsified data.
Allegations being made against Signor Draghi insist that he ‘cooked’ Italy’s debt picture when seeming to reduce Italy’s budget deficit from 7.7 % in 1995 to 2.7% by the crucial entry-qualification year, 1998. It was, by a country kilometre, the steepest debt reduction among any of the (then) eleven eurozone applicants. Draghi went on to join Goldman Sachs in 2002, and by then accusations of book-cooking were already starting to emerge. In 2005, the Bank of Italy was forced to issue a denial, but several eminent commentators found it unconvincing. In 2006, news agency Bloomberg  applied to Draghi’s mentor Jean-Claude ‘Tricky’ Trichet for the release of further information, which Trichet refused to give…again, to the consternation of a number of mainstream financial journalists.
Author Simon Johnson, for example, not only found the answers given by Draghi “unpersuasive”, he also pointed out how unlikely it was that, as a Goldman employee, the Italian had “known nothing” about the fraudulent marketing of debt cover-up
assistance to the Greek Government. Pascal Canfin, Member of the Italian Parliament and former chairman of the ECON committee, grilled Draghi on how he could have known about these transactions and allowed them to go through. He was not satisfied with the answers. The New York Times reported, after Draghi’s nomination for the ECB was approved, that Supermario had marketed similar transactions to other European governments. So it’s pretty clear there have been clouds above Il Draghi’s head for some time.
Meanwhile, the present Italian Government faces  billions of euros in derivatives contract losses that it restructured at the height of the eurozone crisis, according to the Corte dei Conti report. Those having had sight of it say the document ‘sheds more light on the financial tactics that enabled the debt-laden country to enter the euro in 1999′ (linking straight back to Draghi’s time at the Italian Bank) while in turn – according to the FT – it ‘details Italy’s debt transactions and exposure in the first half of 2012, including the restructuring of eight derivatives contracts with foreign banks with a total notional value of €31.7bn’. There was a suggestion from one US source last night that Draghi is also implicated in these.
Meanwhile, new information received at The Slog suggests the Knights Template may be at it again.
Another source emailed The Slog yesterday to point out that a US banking major (unidentified as yet) has told all its staff, on Fed Treasury orders, ‘to inform the US government about all deposits emanating from Italy, from any entity, company, individual or institution, with full and complete comprehensive details of any account opening or transfer or balance in excess of $100,000′.
There is only one reason for such an order: to trace any and all bailin escapees. Yesterday, The Slog posted in Smoke Signals that Italy’s second biggest financial institution, Mediobanca, ‘has overtly warned that the country is going to need a further rescue-cum-bailin within six months at the most. “Time is running out fast,” said Mediobanca analyst, Antonio Guglielmi, “The Italian macro situation has not improved over the last quarter, rather the contrary. Some 160 large corporates in Italy are now in special crisis administration.”’
Last Saturday’s Slogpost  on Draghi’s financial power in the EU accused the EC the previous Thursday of ‘having handed absolute power to the unelected [Draghi]….at the expense of the citizen.’ I went on to accuse the ECB boss of being ‘completely unaccountable to any body or institution – elected or otherwise. Under the ECB’s Constitution guaranteed by the European Commission he is totally immune from prosecution. He cannot be removed from his position. He is obviously censoring any and all information that might reveal the true situation in the eurozone. He illegally subordinated an entire class of bondholders over the second Greek bailout. He managed and spearheaded an overt heist to steal the banking expertise and economic wellbeing of Cyprus, and in so doing committed an act of grand larceny against innocent depositors in the Island’s banks.
It looks suspiciously like Italy is heading for a Cyprus, and pretty soon. I can only repeat the bold type warning I gave then:

This is not a queue for the showers, European nations. It is the line heading directly to the extermination of your democratic rights, individual liberties, and personal wealth. There may be 27 of you and only one Draghi; but your divisions just make his job far easier. Step in the way of the Beasts now, or you will have a jackboot stepping on your face forever.

 

Stay tuned.

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