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Another Deutsche Banker And Former SEC Enforcement Attorney Commits Suicide

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Back on January 26, a 58-year-old former senior executive at German investment bank behemoth Deutsche Bank, William Broeksmit, was found dead after hanging himself at his London home, and with that, set off an unprecedented series of banker suicides throughout the year which included former Fed officials and numerous JPMorgan traders.

Following a brief late summer spell in which there was little if any news of bankers taking their lives, as reported previously, the banker suicides returned with a bang when none other than the hedge fund partner of infamous former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Khan, Thierry Leyne, a French-Israeli entrepreneur, was found dead after jumping off the 23rd floor of one of the Yoo towers, a prestigious residential complex in Tel Aviv. 

Just a few brief hours later the WSJ reported that yet another Deutsche Bank veteran has committed suicide, and not just anyone but the bank's associate general counsel, 41 year old Calogero "Charlie" Gambino, who was found on the morning of Oct. 20, having also hung himself by the neck from a stairway banister, which according to the New York Police Department was the cause of death. We assume that any relationship to the famous Italian family carrying that last name is purely accidental.

Here is his bio from a recent conference which he attended:

Charlie J. Gambino is a Managing Director and Associate General Counsel in the Regulatory, Litigation and Internal Investigation group for Deutsche Bank in the Americas. Mr. Gambino served as a staff attorney in the United Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement from 1997 to 1999. He also was associated with the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate Meagher & Flom from 1999 to 2003. He is a frequent speaker at securities law conferences. Mr. Gambino is a member of the American Bar Association and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.

As a reminder, the other Deutsche Bank-er who was found dead earlier in the year, William Broeksmit, was involved in the bank's risk function and advised the firm's senior leadership; he was "anxious about various authorities investigating areas of the bank where he worked," according to written evidence from his psychologist, given Tuesday at an inquest at London's Royal Courts of Justice. And now that an almost identical suicide by hanging has taken place at Europe's most systemically important bank, and by a person who worked in a nearly identical function - to shield the bank from regulators and prosecutors and cover up its allegedly illegal activities with settlements and fines - is surely bound to raise many questions. 

The WSJ reports that Mr. Gambino had been "closely involved in negotiating legal issues for Deutsche Bank, including the prolonged probe into manipulation of the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, and ongoing investigations into manipulation of currencies markets, according to people familiar with his role at the bank."

He previously was an associate at a private law firm and a regulatory enforcement lawyer from 1997 to 1999, according to his online LinkedIn profile and biographies for conferences where he spoke. But most notably, as his LinkedIn profile below shows, like many other Wall Street revolving door regulators, he started his career at the SEC itself where he worked from 1997 to 1999.

"Charlie was a beloved and respected colleague who we will miss. Our thoughts and sympathy are with his friends and family,” Deutsche Bank said in a statement.

Going back to the previous suicide by a DB executive, the bank said at the time of the inquest that Mr. Broeksmit “was not under suspicion of wrongdoing in any matter.” At the time of Mr. Broeksmit’s death, Deutsche Bank executives sent a memo to bank staff saying Mr. Broeksmit “was considered by many of his peers to be among the finest minds in the fields of risk and capital management.” Mr. Broeksmit had left a senior role at Deutsche Bank’s investment bank in February 2013, but he remained an adviser until the end of 2013. His most recent title was the investment bank’s head of capital and risk-optimization, which included evaluating risks related to complicated transactions.

A thread connecting Broeksmit to wrongdoing, however, was uncovered earlier this summer when Wall Street on Parade referenced his name in relation to the notorious at the time strategy provided by Deutsche Bank and others to allow hedge funds to avoid paying short-term capital gains taxes known as MAPS (see How RenTec Made More Than $34 Billion In Profits Since 1998: "Fictional Derivatives")

From Wall Street on Parade:

Broeksmit’s name first emerged in yesterday’s Senate hearing as Senator Carl Levin, Chair of the Subcommittee, was questioning Satish Ramakrishna, the Global Head of Risk and Pricing for Global Prime Finance at Deutsche Bank Securities in New York. Ramakrishna was downplaying his knowledge of conversations about how the scheme was about changing short term gains into long term gains, denying that he had been privy to any conversations on the matter. 

 

Levin than asked: “Did you ever have conversations with a man named Broeksmit?” Ramakrishna conceded that he had and that the fact that the scheme had a tax benefit had emerged in that conversation. Ramakrishna could hardly deny this as Levin had just released a November 7, 2008 transcript of a conversation between Ramakrishna and Broeksmit where the tax benefit had been acknowledged.

 

Another exhibit released by Levin was an August 25, 2009 email from William Broeksmit to Anshu Jain, with a cc to Ramakrishna, where Broeksmit went into copious detail on exactly what the scheme, internally called MAPS, made possible for the bank and for its client, the Renaissance Technologies hedge fund. (See Email from William Broeksmit to Anshu Jain, Released by the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.)

 

At one point in the two-page email, Broeksmit reveals the massive risk the bank is taking on, writing: “Size of portfolio tends to be between $8 and $12 billion long and same amount of short. Maximum allowed usage is $16 billion x $16 billion, though this has never been approached.”

 

Broeksmit goes on to say that most of Deutsche’s money from the scheme “is actually made by lending them specials that we have on inventory and they pay far above the regular rates for that.”

It would appear that with just months until the regulatory crackdown and Congressional kangaroo circus, Broeksmit knew what was about to pass and being deeply implicated in such a scheme, preferred to take the painless way out.

The question then is just what major regulatory revelation is just over the horizon for Deutsche Bank if yet another banker had to take his life to avoid being cross-examined by Congress under oath? For a hint we go back to another report, this time by the FT, which yesterday noted that Deutsche Bank will set aside just under €1bn towards the numerous legal and regulatory issues it faces in its third quarter results next week, the bank confirmed on Friday.

In a statement made after the close of markets, the Frankfurt-based lender said it expected to publish litigation costs of €894m when it announces its results for the July-September period on October 29.

 

The extra cash will add to Deutsche's already sizeable litigation pot, where the bank has yet to be fined in connection with the London interbank rate-rigging scandal.

 

It is also facing fines from US authorities over alleged mortgage-backed securities misselling and sanctions violations, which have already seen rivals hit with heavy fines.

 

Deutsche has also warned that damage from global investigations into whether traders attempted to manipulate the foreign-exchange market could have a material impact on the bank.

 

The extra charge announced on Friday will bring Deutsche's total litigation reserves to €3.1bn. The bank also has an extra €3.2bn in so-called contingent liabilities for fines that are harder to estimate. 

Clearly Deutsche Bank is slowly becoming Europe's own JPMorgan - a criminal bank whose past is finally catching up to it, and where legal fine after legal fine are only now starting to slam the banking behemoth. We will find out just what the nature of the latest litigation charge is next week when Deutsche Bank reports, but one thing is clear: in addition to mortgage, Libor and FX settlements, one should also add gold. Recall from around the time when the first DB banker hung himself: it was then that Elke Koenig, the president of Germany's top financial regulator, Bafin, said that in addition to currency rates, manipulation of precious metals "is worse than the Libor-rigging scandal."

It remains to be seen if Calogero's death was also related to precious metals rigging although it certainly would not be surprising. What is surprising, is that slowly things are starting to fall apart at the one bank which as we won't tire of highlighting, has a bigger pyramid of notional derivatives on its balance sheet than even JPMorgan, amounting to 20 times more than the GDP of Germany itself, and where if any internal investigation ever goes to the very top, then Europe itself, and thus the world, would be in jeopardy.

At this point it is probably worth reminding to what great lengths regulators would go just to make sure that Deutsche Bank would never be dragged into a major litigation scandal: recall that the chief enforcer of the SEC during the most critical period following the great crash of 2008, Robert Khuzami, worked previously from 2002 to 2009 at, drumroll, Deutsche Bank most recently as its General Counsel (see "Robert Khuzami Stands To Lose Up To $250,000 If He Pursues Action Against Deutsche Bank" and "Circle Jerk 101: The SEC's Robert Khuzami Oversaw Deutsche Bank's CDO, Has Recused Himself Of DB-Related Matters"). The same Khuzami who just landed a $5 million per year contract (with a 2 year guarantee) with yet another "law firm", Kirkland and Ellis. One wonders: if and when the hammer falls on Deutsche Bank, will it perchance be defended by the same K&E and its latest prominent hire, Robert Khuzami himself?       

But usually it is best to just avoid litigation altogether. Which is why perhaps sometimes it is easiest if the weakest links, those whose knowledge can implicate the people all the way at the top, quietly commit suicide in the middle of the night... 

 

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Sun, 10/26/2014 - 16:20 | 5379947 Tall Tom
Tall Tom's picture

Men are all equal...

 

WHEN THEY ARE DEAD.

 

The time does deaw near...which each and every passing moment...with each and every breath inhaled...and exhaled.

 

Anyone whom aids, abets, or is complicit in the Criminal Banksters' Crimes against Humanity, and/or shelters and/or aids in thier escape, thier flight from justice, shall be held as accountable as the criminals themselves.

Sat, 10/25/2014 - 17:23 | 5377115 NuYawkFrankie
NuYawkFrankie's picture

"Waiter! Waiter! There's a dead banker floating face-down in my soup!"

I'm sorry sir - but you did insist on being seated in the retractable-roof area!

Sat, 10/25/2014 - 18:00 | 5377192 Karaio
Karaio's picture

KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!

:-)

Sat, 10/25/2014 - 17:52 | 5377179 Bemused Observer
Bemused Observer's picture

My brain keeps reading the headline as "Douche Banker"...It isn't the first time this has happened with this bank. It's funny, in a Beavis and Butthead sorta way...

Sat, 10/25/2014 - 17:53 | 5377183 PhiBetaZappa
PhiBetaZappa's picture

Obviously he had advance word of the Honey Boo Boo cancellation and took the easy way out. 

Sat, 10/25/2014 - 18:58 | 5377320 robnume
robnume's picture

We're DeutscheBank. We don't care; we don't have to.

Sat, 10/25/2014 - 19:07 | 5377348 Ocean22
Ocean22's picture

This song says it all. Not for kids.

http://youtu.be/GNHOUrYFj70

Sat, 10/25/2014 - 19:12 | 5377369 negative rates
negative rates's picture

JUMP MOTHER FUCKERS!*

Sat, 10/25/2014 - 19:28 | 5377421 theyjustcantstop
theyjustcantstop's picture

not hard to find out which bankers don't have an up to date BIS password.

why do you think bank stress tests were invented, how can the EU not need the ECB if there were no stress tests.

Sat, 10/25/2014 - 20:39 | 5377478 nathan1234
nathan1234's picture

Whatever Charles Gambino knew , Satish Ramakrishna, the Global Head of Risk and Pricing for Global Prime Finance at Deutsche Bank Securities knows and knows more too.

Maybe Gambino wanted to do a Vallachi while Satish has no balls to do anything but shit in his pants.

 

Sat, 10/25/2014 - 20:37 | 5377593 williambanzai7
williambanzai7's picture

Let us try to surmise what would drive someone like this to a self inflicted early demise:

He graduates from St John's Law School, which is second tier and not a free ticket to a Big Law firm like Skadden;

So he detours through the Enforcement Division of the SEC (which as we know is also a second tier operation);

Nevertheless, he manages to revolving door himself into Skadden, which has to be exciting for a securities enforcement litigator;

Sadly like many many others, he does not make the Skadden partnership cut and winds up being a legal shit shoveler defending LIBOR racketeering  for a second tier Bank;

Yes second tier. DB may be king shit in Frankfurt, but America's best and brightest MBA Soviets would never consider it as a first choice;

In an investment bank, the lawyers sit one rung above risk managers when it comes to internal disdain. 

And this is where his career ends, because there is nothing else left for someone with this background.

Exit stage left...

 

Sun, 10/26/2014 - 05:17 | 5378604 trader1
trader1's picture

he may have killed himself to avoid testifying before a committee or out of deeply entrenched societal pressures and a perceived failure to climb that corporate ladder...

 

 

on the flipside, what are the chances that he would have told the truth and could no longer be trusted to keep the house secrets?

 

 

 

Sun, 10/26/2014 - 09:13 | 5378884 DipshitMiddleCl...
DipshitMiddleClassWhiteKid's picture

Boaz Weinsten worked for DB, but he was a credit trader during the prop days...so i guess what you're saying is valid now...

 

~DipshitMIddleClassWhiteKid

Sat, 10/25/2014 - 20:54 | 5377635 mendolover
mendolover's picture

In a New York minute.

Sun, 10/26/2014 - 05:22 | 5378605 trader1
Sat, 10/25/2014 - 21:01 | 5377658 Karaio
Karaio's picture

Uma música antes de dormir:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly-Gzbd1eI0

:-)

Sat, 10/25/2014 - 21:54 | 5377694 Ariadne
Ariadne's picture

Somewhere along the way this triple toxic billboard of selflessness made a bad choice that resulted in a series of bad choices that ended with this. Shortcuts, cutting corners is expensive. Perilous. He had everything this world can offer, except for the one thing that matters most. He either never had or lost his perspective.

We keep losing generations because the oligarchs want it this way. Sheoparents aren't passing on relevant life experience. Obviously teachers aren't there to do it either, just grade & slot the larvae. For life. Drunks like that counselor loser presented yesterday have been dispatching your children on to lifelong trajectories, depending on their transient mental condition and most limited wisdom. If you accept this, you're garbage. Or like this guy, they make a clone of themselves the way they think they would have done it, thinking that what they knew as older children was better. Sometimes thats true. Its a gamble. Considering his age when he was made a lawyer, he probably never had his own perspective. His enemies liked him that way. Your enemies.

You are on your fucking own.

Sun, 10/26/2014 - 20:03 | 5380493 mendolover
mendolover's picture

Quanah Parker!  Now there was a real badass!

Sat, 10/25/2014 - 23:18 | 5378134 q99x2
q99x2's picture

Post the photos bitchez.

Sat, 10/25/2014 - 23:45 | 5378216 red1chief
red1chief's picture

In addition to avoiding tall buildings as they may make you dizzy, and nail guns as they may backfire, if you contemplate revealing Ponzi Schemes you must also avoid rope.  Rope can have the nasty habit of coming to life and wrapping around you, removing any inkling to reveal such Ponzi Schemes.

Sun, 10/26/2014 - 01:02 | 5378399 Karaio
Karaio's picture

Talvez esteja feliz!:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6K7OC-IKnA

hehe.

Sun, 10/26/2014 - 01:09 | 5378406 FredFlintstone
FredFlintstone's picture

You are the disseminater of culture tonight.

Sun, 10/26/2014 - 01:56 | 5378470 space junk
space junk's picture

And we are all terribly broken hearted at the loss of another banker type from the untouchable, unreachable class.   I have more sympathy for a fly that hits my windshield. 

 

Burn in hell if there is one, assh0le`

Sun, 10/26/2014 - 02:20 | 5378492 hedgiex
hedgiex's picture

Yet many muppets are still holding on to DEB and the snake oils that it panders.

Sun, 10/26/2014 - 02:55 | 5378515 tyrone
tyrone's picture

people named Gambino do not jump off the bannister... they help others do that.

Sun, 10/26/2014 - 08:44 | 5378825 d edwards
d edwards's picture

Intesting he was a lawyah aka "consigliari". With a name like Gambino ( infamous mafia crime family) is it any wonder he was in BANKING?

Sun, 10/26/2014 - 07:39 | 5378721 Ancientkarma
Ancientkarma's picture

I know I say this too many times ,but bear with me folks.....GOD BLESS ZERO HEDGE.tell all your friends.

Sun, 10/26/2014 - 09:11 | 5378877 DipshitMiddleCl...
DipshitMiddleClassWhiteKid's picture

I guess working in banking and working in the nefarious sectors of the industry regarding derivatives is a good way to get sucidided eh

 

~DipshitmiddleclassWhiteKid

Sun, 10/26/2014 - 09:16 | 5378893 d edwards
d edwards's picture

Guess he didn't pass the "stress test."

Sun, 10/26/2014 - 09:18 | 5378898 d edwards
d edwards's picture

Guess he didn't pass the "stress test."

Sun, 10/26/2014 - 09:47 | 5378967 aubreyfarmer
aubreyfarmer's picture

I bet Deutche Bank had a large insurance policy on him with no exclusin for suicide.  If I were a banker facing possible prosecution I would be more worried about being murdered for the insurance proceeds than I would be about prosecution.  How long before one of these crooks turns state witness and asks for protection?

Sun, 10/26/2014 - 09:58 | 5378985 shovelhead
shovelhead's picture

Way back when, before the States muscled in on the numbers racket, we had a local trial for a smoke shop bookie who got busted.

Vinnie Capaldo, in his statement says to the judge, says;

"Your Honer, this is all a mistake. I'm not a bookie, I'm an honest tobbaccanist."

The Judge replied:

Mr. Capaldo, from the evidence presented to this court, you are a criminal syndicate that also sells cigars."

TBTF banks need to be told the same.

Sun, 10/26/2014 - 13:15 | 5378988 Robert.Paulson
Robert.Paulson's picture

That makes 14 or 15.. anyone got the  latest bodycount? I lost track. ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEmQhM82JFI

Sun, 10/26/2014 - 12:36 | 5379424 pupdog1
pupdog1's picture

What's with the 1950s mug shot of this monkey?

Sun, 10/26/2014 - 12:49 | 5379461 theprofromdover
theprofromdover's picture

And here's me thinking that all the top bankers are good under stress .....

Sun, 10/26/2014 - 22:04 | 5380851 stopthejunk1
stopthejunk1's picture

Or maybe, lots of people commit suicide, and some of them just happen to be bankers.

No end to the conspiracy theories around here.

Tue, 10/28/2014 - 08:01 | 5385430 yankee phil
yankee phil's picture

Ya know your right , this year there were a lot of suicides and most of em were bankers,I mean this is normal right. The banking industry is beginning to look like jonestown,french guyana.

Sun, 10/26/2014 - 23:57 | 5381071 hangemhigh77
hangemhigh77's picture

Hey "beloved" Charlie..............BURN IN HELL.

Mon, 10/27/2014 - 08:27 | 5381575 Ban KKiller
Ban KKiller's picture

Boo fucking hoo.

Mon, 10/27/2014 - 09:51 | 5381868 Save_America1st
Save_America1st's picture

Question:  of all these so-called "suicides", has anyone really been proven to be dead? 

 

What I'm wondering is if all of these people are really dead or not?  Could they be disappearing themselves?  Are they being helped to disappear, have their identities changed, and living almost under a witness protection program somewhere? 

Maybe most of these people are dead and were actually murdered for what they might know or who they have or would tell if being investigated, etc. 

But maybe some others are being mixed in amongst them as suicides as a cover and are disappearing so that they can keep from being "suicided" for real becuase of what they know, have done, or who they have told. 

I wouldn't be surprised to find out at least a few aren't really laying in a pine box 6 feet under.  Probably some homeless person's body instead.  Or...are they all being creamated in order to cover things up further?

All "suicided" banksters who are supposedly buried should be exhumed and DNA verified that they're actually dead and buried.  Otherwsie I'm thinking some of them are being helped to slip throught he cracks and are now living life as somebody else. 

Tue, 10/28/2014 - 07:45 | 5385405 yankee phil
yankee phil's picture

Carlos Gambino from brooklyn NY,employed by Schacht's ex nazi bank,and he hangs himself when an investigation is about to hand down indictments? Wassa matta, no good jewish lawyers left in the big apple or what. I'd check the rope marks on his neck for a double imprint,ya know what I mean.  The SS forgot more about committing homicide than the mob will ever know.

Tue, 10/28/2014 - 07:51 | 5385416 yankee phil
yankee phil's picture

Not for nothin,whens da cops gonna charge someone in all dez moiders/suicides,or are dey waitin for someone ta railroad for all dez hits.

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