At the Israeli army checkpoint on the edge of Jericho, gamblers from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv streamed into the West Bank town to wager on blackjack, play poker and face off with slot machines at the Palestinian-run Oasis Hotel Casino Resort. The casino was open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.I guess Goldman Sachs isn't so amazing if they didn't know about Refco's books before they underwrote it.
The party that started in September 1998 ended when a Palestinian uprising scared away customers in October 2000, forcing the casino to close within a month.
The Israeli shells that punched holes in the Oasis's stucco- and-black-glass facade also struck a financial blow to one of the casino's investors, Vienna-based Bawag PSK Bank -- the same bank that backed Refco Inc., the New York-based brokerage that collapsed last October after belatedly reporting $430 million in hidden losses.
The tale of Refco's bank -- and its role in the biggest meltdown on Wall Street since junk bond scandals felled Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. in 1990 -- shows how executives gambled with customers' money and may have deceived the elite of the global financial community, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., whose chief executive officer, Henry Paulson, is poised to become the next U.S. Treasury Secretary.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Refco Bank Hid $1 Billion Loss From Hedge Funds, Arafat Casino
Bloomberg reports:
