Federal prosecutors have accused a major Democratic fundraiser with ties to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton of orchestrating a Ponzi scheme that involved swindling several major banks out of hundreds of millions of dollars, and using some of the proceeds to fund political candidates and PACs.
According to a Justice Department press release, Hassan Nemazee was indicted this afternoon by a grand jury, charged with using fake documents and signatures to bilk Citibank, Bank of America, and HSBC out of over $290 million, in an alleged scheme that dates back to 1998. Nemazee alleged used the Citibank money to repay the B of A loan, and vice versa. And even after being questioned by FBI agents about the Citibank loan last month, Nemazee allegedly went to HSBC to fraudulently draw down a line of credit, which he tried to access funds to pay back Citibank.
You can read the indictment here.
Last month, as we reported, Nemazee was charged with fraudulently applying for a loan of over $74 million from Citigroup. Prosecutors alluded to the wider alleged fraud in subsequent court documents, but had not until now claimed that Nemazee used the money to fund political causes. Nor had they referred to the alleged fraud as a Ponzi scheme.
Nemazee, 59, was Hillary Clinton’s finance chair during her 2008 presidential run. He then became a top bundler for Barack Obama’s campaign. He has also been a prolific contributor to Democrats himself.
A call to Nemazee’s lawyer, Marc Mukasey, was not immediately returned.
More details to come…