Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts

Warning about student ‘money mules’












Fraud experts are warning that hundreds of thousands of people are in danger of being duped into laundering money for fraudsters.


They are being recruited as unwitting “money mules” who allow their own bank accounts to be used to disguise the proceeds of crime.


The study was carried out by Financial Fraud Action, which tackles fraud on behalf of banks.


It said that students and jobseekers could be especially vulnerable.


Some 19% of students who had been approached had agreed to become money mules.


“It’s a very serious problem,” warns DCI Dave Carter, an investigator from Financial Fraud Action.


“Almost every single criminal transaction that goes on depends on money mules, to turn the money from crime into something the criminals can spend themselves.”


How it works


Continue reading the main story

It just makes you feel sick. I don’t want it to happen again.”



End Quote Kayleigh Rance job-seeker


The fraudsters contact likely targets by sending out mass emails offering employment, or after sifting through CVs posted by job seekers on employment websites.


Then they offer jobs as “money transfer agents”, “payment processing agents” or “administration assistants” for salaries of hundreds of pounds a week.


It looks like a proper job offer, but the real purpose is to channel cash from criminal activity through a person’s own bank account, making them the fraudster’s money mule.


Kayleigh Rance has been hunting for work for a year. She was taken in and even signed a contract. Then, luckily, she pulled out.


“It just makes you feel a bit sick,” she complains, “I feel like I’ve got to go through all the websites now and take my CV off because I don’t want it to happen again.”


The dirty cash comes from credit card fraud, money stolen from bank accounts and other rip-offs.


Paying it into the money mule’s account disguises where it comes from. The mule transfers it to an account in an overseas bank, controlled by the fraudster. It is classic money laundering.


Some money mules are paid by a straightforward cut of the cash being handled. A typical share would be 8%.


Campaign


The first mules tended to be new entrants to the UK, processing funds generated by crime within their own communities in London and other major cities.


But the power of the internet has allowed the perpetrators to start targeting other groups, including students desperate to earn some extra cash.


Financial Fraud Action commissioned ICM to question 2,000 adults along with separate groups exclusively made up of students, jobseekers and new entrants to the UK.


Around 15% had received the suspect job offers. Overall 6% of those who had been approached accepted the offers, rising to 13% of the unemployed, 19% of students and 20% of new entrants.


Crimestoppers is running a campaign in universities across the UK to warn students not to be fooled into becoming involved, telling them: “Don’t be a mule!”.


‘Colossal risk’


Megan Owen, who is studying criminology, volunteered to help at one recent event in Birmingham City University.


“Lots of students we approached said they’d been affected or their friends had been affected,” she said.


Extrapolating from its survey, Financial Fraud Action concludes that 380,000 people could have become unwitting money mules.


The figure is a stab in the dark, but it is clear that the problem is becoming worse and that few of those who become involved understand the risks they are running.


Their bank accounts could be frozen. If prosecuted, they could be sent to prison for up to 10 years.


“It’s a colossal risk,” warns DCI Carter. “In fact you are taking almost all the risk on behalf of the criminal. That’s why they ask – the money mules are the ones most likely to be caught.”


BBC News – Business





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Warning about student ‘money mules’












Fraud experts are warning that hundreds of thousands of people are in danger of being duped into laundering money for fraudsters.


They are being recruited as unwitting “money mules” who allow their own bank accounts to be used to disguise the proceeds of crime.


The study was carried out by Financial Fraud Action, which tackles fraud on behalf of banks.


It said that students and jobseekers could be especially vulnerable.


Some 19% of students who had been approached had agreed to become money mules.


“It’s a very serious problem,” warns DCI Dave Carter, an investigator from Financial Fraud Action.


“Almost every single criminal transaction that goes on depends on money mules, to turn the money from crime into something the criminals can spend themselves.”


How it works


Continue reading the main story

It just makes you feel sick. I don’t want it to happen again.”



End Quote Kayleigh Rance job-seeker


The fraudsters contact likely targets by sending out mass emails offering employment, or after sifting through CVs posted by job seekers on employment websites.


Then they offer jobs as “money transfer agents”, “payment processing agents” or “administration assistants” for salaries of hundreds of pounds a week.


It looks like a proper job offer, but the real purpose is to channel cash from criminal activity through a person’s own bank account, making them the fraudster’s money mule.


Kayleigh Rance has been hunting for work for a year. She was taken in and even signed a contract. Then, luckily, she pulled out.


“It just makes you feel a bit sick,” she complains, “I feel like I’ve got to go through all the websites now and take my CV off because I don’t want it to happen again.”


The dirty cash comes from credit card fraud, money stolen from bank accounts and other rip-offs.


Paying it into the money mule’s account disguises where it comes from. The mule transfers it to an account in an overseas bank, controlled by the fraudster. It is classic money laundering.


Some money mules are paid by a straightforward cut of the cash being handled. A typical share would be 8%.


Campaign


The first mules tended to be new entrants to the UK, processing funds generated by crime within their own communities in London and other major cities.


But the power of the internet has allowed the perpetrators to start targeting other groups, including students desperate to earn some extra cash.


Financial Fraud Action commissioned ICM to question 2,000 adults along with separate groups exclusively made up of students, jobseekers and new entrants to the UK.


Around 15% had received the suspect job offers. Overall 6% of those who had been approached accepted the offers, rising to 13% of the unemployed, 19% of students and 20% of new entrants.


Crimestoppers is running a campaign in universities across the UK to warn students not to be fooled into becoming involved, telling them: “Don’t be a mule!”.


‘Colossal risk’


Megan Owen, who is studying criminology, volunteered to help at one recent event in Birmingham City University.


“Lots of students we approached said they’d been affected or their friends had been affected,” she said.


Extrapolating from its survey, Financial Fraud Action concludes that 380,000 people could have become unwitting money mules.


The figure is a stab in the dark, but it is clear that the problem is becoming worse and that few of those who become involved understand the risks they are running.


Their bank accounts could be frozen. If prosecuted, they could be sent to prison for up to 10 years.


“It’s a colossal risk,” warns DCI Carter. “In fact you are taking almost all the risk on behalf of the criminal. That’s why they ask – the money mules are the ones most likely to be caught.”


BBC News – Business





Title Post: Warning about student ‘money mules’
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Warning about student ‘money mules’












Fraud experts are warning that hundreds of thousands of people are in danger of being duped into laundering money for fraudsters.


They are being recruited as unwitting “money mules” who allow their own bank accounts to be used to disguise the proceeds of crime.


The study was carried out by Financial Fraud Action, which tackles fraud on behalf of banks.


It said that students and jobseekers could be especially vulnerable.


Some 19% of students who had been approached had agreed to become money mules.


“It’s a very serious problem,” warns DCI Dave Carter, an investigator from Financial Fraud Action.


“Almost every single criminal transaction that goes on depends on money mules, to turn the money from crime into something the criminals can spend themselves.”


How it works


Continue reading the main story

It just makes you feel sick. I don’t want it to happen again.”



End Quote Kayleigh Rance job-seeker


The fraudsters contact likely targets by sending out mass emails offering employment, or after sifting through CVs posted by job seekers on employment websites.


Then they offer jobs as “money transfer agents”, “payment processing agents” or “administration assistants” for salaries of hundreds of pounds a week.


It looks like a proper job offer, but the real purpose is to channel cash from criminal activity through a person’s own bank account, making them the fraudster’s money mule.


Kayleigh Rance has been hunting for work for a year. She was taken in and even signed a contract. Then, luckily, she pulled out.


“It just makes you feel a bit sick,” she complains, “I feel like I’ve got to go through all the websites now and take my CV off because I don’t want it to happen again.”


The dirty cash comes from credit card fraud, money stolen from bank accounts and other rip-offs.


Paying it into the money mule’s account disguises where it comes from. The mule transfers it to an account in an overseas bank, controlled by the fraudster. It is classic money laundering.


Some money mules are paid by a straightforward cut of the cash being handled. A typical share would be 8%.


Campaign


The first mules tended to be new entrants to the UK, processing funds generated by crime within their own communities in London and other major cities.


But the power of the internet has allowed the perpetrators to start targeting other groups, including students desperate to earn some extra cash.


Financial Fraud Action commissioned ICM to question 2,000 adults along with separate groups exclusively made up of students, jobseekers and new entrants to the UK.


Around 15% had received the suspect job offers. Overall 6% of those who had been approached accepted the offers, rising to 13% of the unemployed, 19% of students and 20% of new entrants.


Crimestoppers is running a campaign in universities across the UK to warn students not to be fooled into becoming involved, telling them: “Don’t be a mule!”.


‘Colossal risk’


Megan Owen, who is studying criminology, volunteered to help at one recent event in Birmingham City University.


“Lots of students we approached said they’d been affected or their friends had been affected,” she said.


Extrapolating from its survey, Financial Fraud Action concludes that 380,000 people could have become unwitting money mules.


The figure is a stab in the dark, but it is clear that the problem is becoming worse and that few of those who become involved understand the risks they are running.


Their bank accounts could be frozen. If prosecuted, they could be sent to prison for up to 10 years.


“It’s a colossal risk,” warns DCI Carter. “In fact you are taking almost all the risk on behalf of the criminal. That’s why they ask – the money mules are the ones most likely to be caught.”


BBC News – Business





Title Post: Warning about student ‘money mules’
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/warning-about-student-money-mules/
Link To Post : Warning about student ‘money mules’
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

Warning about student ‘money mules’












Fraud experts are warning that hundreds of thousands of people are in danger of being duped into laundering money for fraudsters.


They are being recruited as unwitting “money mules” who allow their own bank accounts to be used to disguise the proceeds of crime.


The study was carried out by Financial Fraud Action, which tackles fraud on behalf of banks.


It said that students and jobseekers could be especially vulnerable.


Some 19% of students who had been approached had agreed to become money mules.


“It’s a very serious problem,” warns DCI Dave Carter, an investigator from Financial Fraud Action.


“Almost every single criminal transaction that goes on depends on money mules, to turn the money from crime into something the criminals can spend themselves.”


How it works


Continue reading the main story

It just makes you feel sick. I don’t want it to happen again.”



End Quote Kayleigh Rance job-seeker


The fraudsters contact likely targets by sending out mass emails offering employment, or after sifting through CVs posted by job seekers on employment websites.


Then they offer jobs as “money transfer agents”, “payment processing agents” or “administration assistants” for salaries of hundreds of pounds a week.


It looks like a proper job offer, but the real purpose is to channel cash from criminal activity through a person’s own bank account, making them the fraudster’s money mule.


Kayleigh Rance has been hunting for work for a year. She was taken in and even signed a contract. Then, luckily, she pulled out.


“It just makes you feel a bit sick,” she complains, “I feel like I’ve got to go through all the websites now and take my CV off because I don’t want it to happen again.”


The dirty cash comes from credit card fraud, money stolen from bank accounts and other rip-offs.


Paying it into the money mule’s account disguises where it comes from. The mule transfers it to an account in an overseas bank, controlled by the fraudster. It is classic money laundering.


Some money mules are paid by a straightforward cut of the cash being handled. A typical share would be 8%.


Campaign


The first mules tended to be new entrants to the UK, processing funds generated by crime within their own communities in London and other major cities.


But the power of the internet has allowed the perpetrators to start targeting other groups, including students desperate to earn some extra cash.


Financial Fraud Action commissioned ICM to question 2,000 adults along with separate groups exclusively made up of students, jobseekers and new entrants to the UK.


Around 15% had received the suspect job offers. Overall 6% of those who had been approached accepted the offers, rising to 13% of the unemployed, 19% of students and 20% of new entrants.


Crimestoppers is running a campaign in universities across the UK to warn students not to be fooled into becoming involved, telling them: “Don’t be a mule!”.


‘Colossal risk’


Megan Owen, who is studying criminology, volunteered to help at one recent event in Birmingham City University.


“Lots of students we approached said they’d been affected or their friends had been affected,” she said.


Extrapolating from its survey, Financial Fraud Action concludes that 380,000 people could have become unwitting money mules.


The figure is a stab in the dark, but it is clear that the problem is becoming worse and that few of those who become involved understand the risks they are running.


Their bank accounts could be frozen. If prosecuted, they could be sent to prison for up to 10 years.


“It’s a colossal risk,” warns DCI Carter. “In fact you are taking almost all the risk on behalf of the criminal. That’s why they ask – the money mules are the ones most likely to be caught.”


BBC News – Business





Title Post: Warning about student ‘money mules’
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Sinopec to buy stake in Chesapeake assets for $1.02 billion






(Reuters) – China Petroleum & Chemical Corp (Sinopec) will buy half of Chesapeake Energy Corp‘s Mississippi Lime oil and gas properties in Oklahoma for $ 1.02 billion to increase its presence in the booming North American shale gas industry.


Output from shale fields in the United States and Canada has jumped over the last three years due to the advent of drilling methods such as hydraulic fracturing.






Companies in China, which has the largest shale reserves in the world, are keen to get the know-how of drilling in such unconventional fields.


China’s state-owned CNOOC Ltd has struck a deal to buy Canadian oil and gas company Nexen Inc for $ 15.1 billion, while Pioneer Natural Resources Co said last month it would sell a stake in its assets in the Wolfcamp shale field of Texas to Sinochem Group for $ 1.7 billion.


Sinopec, Asia’s largest oil refiner, will buy 50 percent of Chesapeake’s 850,000 acres of net oil and natural gas leasehold properties in the Mississippi Lime shale field in northern Oklahoma, the companies said.


The Mississippi Lime assets will be bought by Sinopec International.


“The deal is about $ 200 million below our modeled assumption for similar acreage but (with) more production,” analysts at investment bank Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co said.


Chesapeake shares were down marginally at $ 20.40 in premarket trading on Monday. The stock has risen about 23 percent this year.


However, SunTrust Robinson Humphrey analyst Neal Dingmann. said the deal was very positive for Chesapeake.


“The price based on all metrics appears better than what myself or the Street expected, especially the $ 2,400 per acre metric,” he said.


Chesapeake has about 2.1 million net acres of leasehold in the Mississippi Lime region, which straddles northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas.


Chesapeake’s production from the Mississippi Lime region jumped 208 percent to an average of 32,500 barrels of oil equivalent per day in the fourth quarter, the company reported this month.


About 45 percent of the total output was oil, 46 percent was natural gas and the rest was natural gas liquids.


Sinopec’s deal with Chesapeake, the second-largest gas producer in the United States, will help the Oklahoma City-based company cut down its debt, which stood at $ 12 billion as of December 31.


Chesapeake, which closed $ 12 billion of asset sales last year, is targeting asset sales of $ 4 billion to $ 7 billion in 2013, the company said in a presentation earlier this month.


Chesapeake said in December it would sell most of its natural gas processing and gathering assets for $ 2.16 billion to Access Midstream Partners LP .


The company’s board and big shareholders are trying to rein in spending, pay down debt and increase production of more profitable oil.


Chief Executive Aubrey McClendon, who co-founded the company in 1989, is stepping down on April 1 following a tumultuous year during which the company faced a liquidity crunch and a governance crisis.


Sinopec struck a deal with Devon Energy Corp in January 2012 to buy a third of the U.S. oil and natural gas producer’s interest in five developing fields for about $ 2.2 billion.


Business News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Frustrated Italians vote in crucial election for euro zone






ROME (Reuters) – Italians voted on Sunday in one of the most closely watched and unpredictable elections in years, with pent-up fury over a discredited elite adding to concern it may not produce a government strong enough to lead Italy out of an economic slump.


The election, which concludes on Monday afternoon, is being followed closely by investors; their memories are still fresh of the potentially catastrophic debt crisis that saw Mario Monti, an economics professor and former bureaucrat, summoned to serve as prime minister in place of Silvio Berlusconi 15 months ago.






A weak Italian government could, many fear, prompt a new dip in confidence in the European Union‘s single currency.


Opinion polls give the center-left a narrow lead but the result has been thrown completely open by the prospect of a huge protest vote against the painful austerity measures imposed by Monti’s government and deep anger over a never-ending series of corruption scandals. Berlusconi’s centre-right has also revived.


“I’m not confident that the government that emerges from the election will be able to solve any of our problems,” said Attilio Bianchetti, a 55-year-old builder in Milan, who voted for the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement of comic and blogger Beppe Grillo.


The 64-year-old Grillo, heavily backed by a frustrated generation of young Italians hit by record unemployment, has been one of the biggest features of the last stage of the campaign, packing rallies in town squares up and down Italy.


“He’s the only real new element in a political landscape where we’ve been seeing the same faces for too long,” said Vincenzo Cannizzaro, 48, in the Sicialian capital Palermo.


Italians started voting at 8 a.m. (0700 GMT). Polling booths will remain open until 10 p.m. on Sunday and open again between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. on Monday. Exit polls will come out soon after voting ends and official results are expected by early Tuesday.


Snow in northern regions is expected to last into Monday and could discourage some of the 47 million people eligible to vote in Italy to head out to polling stations, though the Interior Ministry has said it is fully prepared for bad weather.


Monti and his wife cast their votes at a polling booth in a Milan school on Sunday morning and centre-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani, the leader opinion polls suggest will have to form a new government, voted in his home town of Piacenza.


A small group of women’s rights demonstrators greeted former prime minister Berlusconi when he voted in Milan. They bared their breasts in protest at the conservative leader, who is on trial at present for having sex with an underage prostitute.


Whichever government emerges from the election will have to tackle reforms needed to address problems that have given Italy one of the most sluggish economies in the developed world for the past two decades.


But the widespread despair over the state of the country, where a series of corruption scandals has highlighted the stark divide between a privileged political elite and millions of ordinary Italians, has left deep scars.


“It’s our fault, Italian citizens. It’s our closed mentality. We’re just not Europeans,” said Luciana Li Mandri, a 37-year-old public servant in Palermo.


“We’re all about getting favors when we study, getting a protected job when we work. That’s the way we are and we can only be represented by people like that as well,” she said.


FRUSTRATION


Final polls published two weeks ago showed center-left leader Bersani with a 5-point lead, but analysts disagree about whether he will be able to form a stable majority that can make the economic reforms they believe Italy needs.


While the center left is still expected to gain control of the lower house, thanks to rules that guarantee a strong majority to whichever party wins the most votes nationally, a much closer battle will be fought for the Senate, which any government also needs to control to be able to pass laws.


The euro zone’s third-largest economy is stuck in deep recession, struggling under a public debt burden second only to Greece in the 17-member currency bloc and with a public weary of more than a year of austerity policies.


Bersani is now thought to be just a few points ahead of media magnate Berlusconi, the four-times prime minister who has promised tax refunds and staged a media blitz in an attempt to win back voters.


Think-tank consultant Mario, 60, who was on his way to vote in Bologna, said Bersani’s Democratic Party was the only serious grouping that could help solve the country’s economic woes.


“They’re not perfect,” he said. “But they’ve got the organization and the union backing that will help them push through the structural reforms.”


A strong fightback by Berlusconi, who has promised to repay a widely hated housing tax, the IMU, imposed by Monti last year, saw his support climb during a campaign that relentlessly attacked the “German-centric” austerity policies of the former European Union commissioner.


“I won’t vote for Monti, and I don’t think a lot of people will. He made a huge blunder with IMU,” said 35-year-old hairdresser Marco Morando, preparing to vote in Milan.


But the populist frustration Berlusconi’s campaign tapped into has also benefitted Grillo and many pollsters said his 5-Star Movement, made up of political novices, was challenging the center-right for the position as second political force.


“I’m very worried. There seems to be no way out from a political point of view, or from being able to govern,” said Calogero Giallanza, a 45-year-old musician in Rome, who voted for Bersani’s Democrats.


“There’s bound to be a mess in the Senate because, as far as I can see, the 5-Star Movement is unstoppable.”


(Additional reporting by Cristiano Corvino, Lisa Jucca, Jennifer Clark, Matthias Baehr and Sara Rossi in Milan, Stephen Jewkes in Bologna, Wladimir Pantaleone in Palermo, Stefano Bernabei and Massimiliano Di Giorgio in Rome; Editing by Robin Pomeroy and Alastair Macdonald)


Economy News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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The Brinks Miami Heist: Stealing $7.4 Million Was the Easy Part







In the fall of 2005, Karls Monzon’s childhood friend and neighbor Onelio Diaz approached him with a proposal. Diaz worked as a security guard for Brink’s (BCO) at Miami International Airport. Every day, he explained, a Lufthansa (LHA) jet from Frankfurt landed at the airport carrying bricks of $ 50 and $ 100 bills in bags. The shipments were from Germany’s second-largest bank, Commerzbank (CBK), and averaged between $ 80 million and $ 100 million per flight.


Brink’s employed Diaz and a few other guards to escort the bills from the tarmac to a warehouse at the airport perimeter to clear customs. The guards would examine the bags for tampering or tears and drive them in armored cars to the Miami branch of the Federal Reserve, about four miles away. The whole process took about two hours.






Diaz was attentive at work, but not in the way his employers might have wished. To Monzon, he ticked off the security vulnerabilities inside the warehouse: The bills lay exposed; the security cameras didn’t work; the guards removed their guns before entering the building; and most alluring of all, the warehouse’s enormous bay doors led directly onto the street, which meant that one could bypass the perimeter fence and the airport gatehouse. Diaz didn’t want to join the robbery attempt, but for an even cut of the haul he would signal Monzon when it was time to strike. Monzon was in.


In 2011 the Federal Reserve physically handled transfers of about $ 640 billion in cash. That’s about 35 billion bills. The money mainly passes through a handful of cash logistics companies, themselves a $ 14 billion sector of the U.S. economy. The most famous and important of these companies is Brink’s, which dates to 1859. It handles an average of about 250 flights worldwide each day, part of about 1,500 high-value shipments the company runs daily.


Despite the rivers of cash, surprisingly little is stolen. Armored carriers overall reported only 42 thefts in 2011, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. On those rare occasions when money is snatched, however, things can get messy. In February 2012 a Garda driver in Pittsburgh allegedly shot his partner in the back of the head before driving off with $ 2.3 million. In December, four men shot a Loomis armored car driver in the face before taking the truck from a Maryland strip mall.


At the time Diaz laid out his plan, Monzon, a then-32-year-old Cuban immigrant, worked at United Rentals (URI), which leases construction equipment, delivering cranes and backhoes to work sites. On weekends he rode fast Japanese motorcycles, collected Glock pistols, and frequented a swingers’ club called Miami Velvet with his wife, Cinnamon (who did not respond to requests for comment on this story).


According to court records and interviews with FBI Special Agent Alex Peraza—which form the basic sources for this article—Monzon went to work putting together a gang. His first thought was to try some members of his motorcycle club. A few seemed to be involved with a gang who preyed on criminals. He couldn’t get that together, so he turned to family and friends. He recruited his uncle-in-law Conrado “Pinky” Perera, who had a criminal past but also planned to start his own legitimate business; his co-worker, Roberto Perez, who agreed to join only as a lookout; and his brother-in-law, Jeffrey Boatwright, who struggled with drug addiction.


a670f  feature miamiheist09  01  inline605 The Brinks Miami Heist: Stealing $7.4 Million Was the Easy PartIllustration by Nathan FoxOne bag, holding $ 2.1 million, didn’t make it to the truck


At around 3 p.m. on Nov. 6, Boatwright, Monzon, and Perera arrived at the airport warehouse in a black pickup truck. Monzon and Perera got out, pulled bandannas over their faces, hauled themselves onto the loading dock, and went through the open doors. Inside the warehouse they saw what Diaz had described: a gaping space littered with crates and plastic packing wrap. Right by the doors, a handful of guards, including Diaz, sorted through canvas bags stuffed with cash. The day’s shipment, 42 bags, added up to $ 88 million, about $ 2.1 million a bag.


Monzon and Perera pulled out their guns and ordered the guards onto the floor. They grabbed six bags of cash, each weighing about 38 pounds. When they ran to the bay door, one bag dropped. They left it on the warehouse floor. They threw the others into the bed of the truck and made off with $ 7.4 million. The only clue the guards would report to the newspapers was that the thieves were speaking in both Spanish and English.


Back at Monzon’s home, Monzon, Boatwright, and Perera divvied up the haul. Each took $ 1.6 million. They set aside $ 1 million each for Perez and Diaz, and $ 500,000 for Alex Leon, who had been hired to ditch the pickup truck. The only other time anyone had ever pulled off an airport robbery with a payoff as large was in 1978, when the Gambino and Lucchese crime families robbed $ 8 million in cash and jewels from a Lufthansa shipment at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. The thieves involved in the heist, which became the basis of Martin Scorsese’s 1990 film Goodfellas, paid off figures within the crime families, including John Gotti, to protect themselves. Nevertheless, 13 people connected to the crime ended up dead.


Monzon’s plan, naturally, was to lie low. The crew sealed the money in vacuum packs and split up. Monzon stashed some of his money in PVC pipes and buried them under his family’s house in Homestead, a rural area halfway between Miami and the Florida Keys. Some went into the attic. He didn’t hide it all, though: He bought a Suzuki Hayabusa motorcycle worth about $ 14,000. But the everyday dramas of ordinary life continued. Monzon kept his job at the rental company. Cinnamon kept working as well, as a receptionist at Vista magazine. “I get up every day at six in the morning to come work like a slave,” she complained months later in a phone conversation tapped by the FBI.


Boatwright took a different approach. He bought a Rolex and a set of gold caps for his teeth and began days-long drug binges at strip clubs. He dropped thousands of dollars partying with friends. Rumors spread to Monzon that he was doing drugs right out in the street.


Ultimately, the success of a heist rests on what happens after the money is stolen. “You better know more than just how to steal the money, because that’s just the beginning of the process,” says Timothy Wagner, director of the South Florida High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, a program that coordinates the activities of local police detectives and federal agents. With no authority like the police or courts to appeal to, smaller, weaker criminals are preyed on by larger, better organized, more aggressive counterparts. “You become a target. You’re naked out there,” says Special Agent Peraza, who headed the investigation of Monzon and his gang.


Monzon worried that sooner or later Boatwright would either be targeted by other criminals or get caught by the police, so he decided to hire someone to scare him, as Peraza sees it. Monzon seems to have picked his acquaintances at the motorcycle club for the job, the same people he originally tried to involve in the heist. On their own initiative, it appears, they turned on Monzon. The gang abducted Boatwright outside the Gold Rush, a black-lit strip club in downtown Miami, in December 2005. They drove him south to a farm in Homestead, coincidentally near Monzon’s own house. The FBI speculates that the gang had figured out that Monzon had far more money than he was paying them. They set a ransom of $ 1 million. They beat Boatwright and tore at his fingernails with pliers. After Monzon delivered the money—it was part of Boatwright’s cut—he had to bring Boatwright to the hospital. Monzon’s problems had only begun.


The FBI’s investigation got off to a poor start. Leading the effort was Peraza, a 20-year FBI veteran who, with his untucked tropical shirts and well-trimmed salt-and-pepper goatee, looks something like an agent in Margaritaville. From the get-go, he says, he suspected the supervisor at the warehouse to be the inside man, but he couldn’t prove it. Brink’s then offered a $ 150,000 reward for information. (Brink’s declined to comment.) Among a flood of useless calls, the FBI received one from a tipster within Monzon’s circle. The FBI, which has not released his name, dubbed him the Private Investigator. According to Peraza, when they met at the police station, the PI was so terrified, he shook as he chain-smoked. In spite of his nerves, he identified Monzon and his crew. By February 2006, Peraza had wiretapped Monzon’s phone, but instead of just uncovering details of the robbery, Peraza and his agents arrived in the middle of a second kidnapping.


The first kidnapping, it turned out, had neither brought Monzon security nor silenced Boatwright. Soon after Boatwright left the hospital, he turned back to drugs and partying, using up the little money he had left. The $ 1 million ransom didn’t satisfy the kidnappers. Instead, it inspired another nabbing of Boatwright, this time, according to court transcripts, led by gang member Michael Hernandez.


On the night of Feb. 16, 2006, Boatwright was partying at the Gold Rush when two strangers, Tatiana and Mimi, joined his table. The women charmed Boatwright and drew him out of the club and into an SUV in the parking lot. Once inside, Tatiana and Mimi got out and two men got in. One cracked Boatwright on the head with the butt of a pistol and tied a shirt over his face. The other started driving.


Twelve hours later, Monzon got a call on his tapped cell phone while he was at work. It was from Robert Salty, a friend of Boatwright’s who was secretly collaborating with the kidnappers for a cut of the ransom; they spoke in Spanish. “I just got a call from a guy, and he told me that they caught Jeffrey. They have Jeffrey again. They want some money,” said Salty. “I spoke with Jeffrey and everything. Jeffrey is there screaming and crying.”


Monzon had lost his appetite for rescuing his brother-in-law, and he tried to keep his distance. “I did what I can, bro. I’m sorry,” he said. “Let his mother take care of that.”


Not long after, he got a second call. This time it was Guillermo Del Regato, one of the kidnappers. “I have your brother-in-law here, the fat one,” he said. “He’ll stay here with me until someone comes up with half a million. I know what you guys did, and I don’t want to get involved with the feds or anything like that. That’s not my problem. The only thing I want is my money.”


“I have nothing to do with what he’s done with his life,” said Monzon.


Del Regato put Boatwright on the phone.


“Bro, you got to fix this,” he said.


“What do you want me to do?” asked Monzon.


“Where’s your money? Does the money mean more to you than me, than my life?”


The answer was not straightforward for Monzon. He still had most of his $ 1.6 million stake of the split stashed on his family’s property.


“Hey, you looked for it, bro,” Monzon said. “Now you deal with it. I told you to get the f-‍ -‍ - out of here, but you wanted to party. Now deal with it.”


Not long after, Cinnamon Monzon spoke on the phone with her husband. She had just gotten a call from the kidnappers, which she’d recorded. She played it back for Monzon. In the call, the kidnapper left some instructions: “If you think that we are playing, then look tomorrow at 9 o’clock in the morning, check the mailbox at 2930 Southwest 76th Ave., and you are going to see your brother’s finger.”


Monzon wasn’t a totally unfeeling brother-in-law. Boatwright meant something to him. He just didn’t want to pay to get him back. He left work, went to a gun shop, walked out with a new AK-47 and ammo, and put it in the trunk of his car. Later, the FBI reported, he called Salty and told him, “I am gonna say that I have money, and I’m gonna go over there and I’m gonna shower them with bullets from the car. I have an AK-47 with me already with two clips.” He said he was going to turn the kidnappers’ car into “a strainer.”


At that point, Peraza realized that the only responsible course of action was to arrange a kidnapping of his own. From the tapped calls, Peraza knew that Monzon and his wife had scheduled a doctor’s appointment on the evening of Feb. 17, 2006. So as Monzon and Cinnamon were inside South Miami Hospital, an unmarked van waited at the hospital entrance. When Monzon stepped outside, Peraza gave a signal and a SWAT team poured out of the van, dragged Monzon inside, and drove off. “Welcome to the FBI,” Peraza told Monzon. If anyone noticed, nobody reported it, which suited the FBI. They didn’t want the kidnappers to know they had Monzon.


In the Miami-Dade County precinct headquarters, Peraza sat face to face with the man he’d been stalking for four months. Monzon at first refused to cooperate but finally agreed in return for a few moments with his wife.


By the time Monzon agreed to cooperate, the kidnappers had held Boatwright for more than 24 hours. It was well past midnight, and they were getting antsy. They dropped the ransom to $ 150,000. They pleaded with Monzon. “You did your thing, you came ahead. S-‍ -‍ -, let me be on top, too,” said the kidnapper on the other end of the call. Peraza, now dictating Monzon’s response, told Monzon to stall, which he did, saying it would take him time to gather up the money.


The call came from Bent Tree, a neighborhood to the west of Miami. While they spoke, FBI and Miami-Dade detectives wound through Bent Tree’s cul-de-sacs in a van equipped with a device called a Stingray, a satellite dish that can track the direction of cell signals, but not their precise location. The van roved the neighborhood trying to pinpoint the kidnappers’ hideout until around 3 a.m., when the signal started to move east.


The kidnappers were heading to a drop-off site where they’d leave Boatwright before collecting the ransom. On a hunch, one of the detectives suggested the FBI try the Miami Princess Hotel, beside the airport. The Princess is a pink stucco motel with kitschy theme suites such as the Jungle Room and the Disco Room. Each has its own garage, so patrons can come and go discreetly. As the Stingray van pulled into the lot, a man noticed the dish on its roof and rushed up to the second floor. The cell signal stopped, and a black SUV backed out of a parking spot and sped away.


A detective and an agent got out of the van and ran up to the second floor. They pulled their guns on one kidnapper, who was still in the walkway beside the open door of a room. They shouted for him to show his hands. Instead he reached into his pocket and threw a small satchel into the room. The officers tackled him. Later, when they opened the satchel, they found watches and a set of gold tooth caps. Boatwright wasn’t in the room.


Meanwhile, the detective in the van called for backup as he began to pursue the SUV, which was now out of sight. Pulling out of the parking lot, he drove the van one way down Northwest 11th Street, saw no one, and reversed course. A few blocks away, he saw the SUV stopped at a red light. The flashing lights of police cars streamed from the opposite direction and surrounded it. Inside, the detective found two of the kidnappers, Manuel Palacio and Guillermo Del Regato, who had Monzon’s phone number on a piece of paper in his wallet.


The police found Boatwright in the back of a pickup truck parked in the hotel garage, his mouth, eyes, and hands duct-taped, blood on his shirt. When the agents tore the tape from his mouth, Boatwright’s first words were, “Please don’t hurt me.”


a670f  feature miamiheist09  02  inline304 The Brinks Miami Heist: Stealing $7.4 Million Was the Easy PartIllustration by Nathan FoxWhen found, Boatwright said: “Please don’t hurt me”


In all, the FBI arrested five men for the second kidnapping of Jeffrey Boatwright. Robert Salty, Michael Sanfiel, and Guillermo Del Regato all pleaded guilty and were given from 7 to 15 years. Manuel Palacio and Michael Hernandez went to trial and received 34- and 26-year prison sentences, respectively. Both feel they were misrepresented by their lawyers and are fighting to be tried again. Hernandez says his lawyer only visited once while he was in custody. “I’m not saying whether I’m guilty or not guilty. All I’m saying is that they never gave me the opportunity to defend myself the right way,” he says.


The thieves all pleaded guilty to taking part in the robbery. Monzon was sentenced to 17 years; his friend Onelio Diaz received 16. Boatwright was given a 13-year sentence. Pinky Perera got 11 years, Roberto Perez was given six years, and Alex Leon received three. Cinnamon Monzon was sentenced to three years for being an accessory to theft.


As for the money, Monzon led the FBI to the $ 1.2 million he had hidden in his attic, buried in pipes in the backyard, and tucked under the tiles of his mother-in-law’s living room floor. Of the $ 7.4 million stolen, that would be all the FBI would recover. Diaz claimed that a good portion of his money was stashed with Monzon’s—the rest he had spent. Boatwright spent most of his share on drugs and paying off his kidnappers. Perera had gone to Georgia with his million to start an aftermarket auto parts company, which soon failed. In a phone call from prison, when asked what happened to all the money he had, Perera mumbled, “It’s gone. I wasted it.”


“For all we know they may have a stash somewhere for them to enjoy when they get out of prison,” Peraza says. “But I feel confident that whatever’s left, it’s not significant.”


Cash planes still crisscross the skies daily. Brink’s won’t say if it’s changed any of its security measures.



Grushkin is a Bloomberg Businessweek contributor.


Businessweek.com — Top News





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For Lego, Pink is the New Black






In Dec. 2011, the Danish masters of toy bricks and mini-figures launched Lego Friends, a new line of building sets aimed at girls, to much skepticism, reflection, and even, in some quarters, #LiberateLEGO opposition. None could argue the company hadn’t skewed “boy” in recent years, with seemingly endless iterations of Star Wars, police, and ninja-themed sets. Still, the new pastel color palate and taller, slimmer lady mini-figs (introduced on our cover), and scenarios—suburban home, beauty parlor, and “New Born Foal” horse stable—suggested to some that the company was retrograde, pandering, or even sexist. Maybe so. In any case, it’s working: Lego Friends is a huge hit, exceeding Lego’s own wildest expectations.


On Thursday, the Lego Group reported that Lego Friends became the company’s fourth best-selling line in only its first year (behind Star Wars, Ninjago, and Lego CITY, and surpassing superheroes), helping the company record the best financial results in its 81-year history, with a 25 percent increase in revenues globally (to $ 4.04 billion). Moreover, Lego Friends’ performance has silenced any remaining naysayers within Lego who doubted the brand could appeal equally to both genders. (In 2013, Lego Friends will have another wave of products grouped around a “School’s Out” theme. Sets to include a detailed school and various after-school activities for the friends, such as martial arts, soccer, magic, and dance.)






“Our data shows that we tripled the number of girls who are building with Lego bricks in the U.S. market since the launch of Friends, and we’ve significantly shifted the gender split among Lego users,” says Michael McNally, Lego’s U.S. spokesman. Independent data appear to back-up Lego’s claims. Retail researchers NPD Group tracks Lego Friends in its Building Sets category. If you compare Lego Friends dollar volume to similar volumes in the Dolls Play Sets category (where it is sometimes merchandised in stores), Friends comes out on top: the No. 1 property of 2012.


A closer look at the company’s annual report, meanwhile, suggests that Lego and its CEO Jørgen Vig Knudstorp will be hard-pressed to top 2012. (Because the company is private—it is 75 percent held by Kirkbi, a holding company  controlled by the founding Kirk Kristiansen family, and 25 percent by the Billund, Denmark-based Lego Foundation—it doesn’t publish quarterly earnings. But it has made its annual report public since 1997.)


•    The year’s operating profit increased to $ 1,373 million against $ 1,057 million in 2011, an increase of 40 percent.
•    The operating margin increased to 34 percent from 30 percent in 2011.
•    The year’s net profit increased to $ 969 million against $ 776 million in 2011.
•    The net cash generated from operating activities was $ 1,100 million against $ 666 million in 2011.


There are even numbers an economist and deficit hawk can love: In 2012, the Lego Group hired more than 1,000 people and paid $ 330 million in corporate income taxes. (The 1,000 employees is nearly a 10 percent increase in its global workforce.)


Aside from the surprising contribution of Lego Friends to Lego’s bottom line, what’s most remarkable about these figures is how successful Lego has been selling in shaky, even moribund European markets, and just how far it has come under Knudstorp. Though his typical Scandinavian reserve likely would prevent it, Knudstorp could reasonably claim that he’s the best turnaround artist in global business. Just 36 when he was promoted to the top spot nine years ago, Knudstorp is only the fourth CEO at the company, and the first who’s not a member of the Kristiansen family. And it’s difficult to imagine now, but at the time of his promotion the company was losing the equivalent of one million Danish kroner a day and getting mail from fans pleading, in the words of one letter Knudstorp will never forget, “to please not die.”


A bonafide intellectual (he holds a PhD in economics from Aarhus University), Knudstorp is, in many respects, an anti-Steve Jobs. He doesn’t start with a vision of what Lego ought to create next and relentlessly refine it; he’s a systems guy, obsessed with devising a method for his engineers to do deliberately what Jobs did instinctively. This is how he came to approve Lego Friends. He didn’t have an epiphany one night. Instead, he set parameters for his R&D department and let them deliver.


“Adapting as a business can mean moving to a new technology, or can be achieved through acquisitions,” Knudstorp told me in a Sept. 2011 interview. He pointed out that Lego’s fundamental technology—snug stud-into-tube bricks that hold fast but come apart easily—hasn’t changed since 1958. Over its eight-plus decade history, he went on, Lego hadn’t been involved in a single noteworthy merger or acquisition. “For us,” he said, “the challenge is in some ways bigger: to take known constructs and organize them in new and surprising ways.”


Not unlike making something new out of Legos.


Businessweek.com — Top News





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French blast ‘ignorant’ US tyre boss







A French minister has responded angrily to the boss of US tyremaker Titan who said he would have to be “stupid” to invest in the country.






Maurice Taylor made the claims in a letter to France’s minister for industrial recovery, Arnaud Montebourg.


On Thursday, Mr Montebourg replied that Mr Taylor’s “extreme” comments showed a “perfect ignorance of what our country is”.


He added that 20,000 foreign firms are in France, employing 2 million people.


Mr Taylor – a former candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 1996 – was replying to a request for Titan to consider investing in a loss-making Goodyear plant in Amiens, north France.


“I have visited that factory a couple of times. The French workforce gets paid high wages but only works three hours,” Mr Taylor said in the letter, dated 8 February, and published by French business daily Les Echos on Wednesday.


“They get one hour for breaks and lunch, talk for three and work for three. I told this to the French union workers to their faces. They told me that’s the French way!”


On Thursday, he told Le Figaro: “I didn’t want to insult the French. I wanted to say that the union at the factory in Amiens has a screw loose.


“If the French workers work, they will be as competitive as the Germans, British or the Americans. The problem is that the French are too expensive because of their particular benefits.”


Mr Taylor is nicknamed “the Grizz” for his bear-like no-nonsense style. He added: “How stupid do you think we are?”


French unions had blasted the content of his letter.


The spat has been front page news in France and caused lots of discussion over “le French bashing” on social media over the past few days.


More spats


In his response, Mr Montebourg said: “May I point out that Titan, the company you lead, is 20 times smaller than Michelin, our French leader of international influence, and 35 times less profitable?”


The minister added that 4,200 subsidiaries of US firms employed more than 500,000 people in France and that some firms had been around since 1842.


He went on to praise the efforts of young US soldiers in World War II and the current efforts of President Barack Obama to stop deindustrialisation in the US.


This is not the first row that Mr Montebourg has been involved in since the Socialists took charge of the presidency last summer.


He accused steelmaker Arcelor Mittal of “lying” and “disrespecting” the country and said it was no longer welcome during a spat over the closure of two furnaces at its steel plant in Florange.


France has a 35-hour statutory working week, brought in by the Socialist Party in 2000, but critics say it is now stifling economic growth.


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Homebuilding takes a breather, wholesale prices up






WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. builders broke ground on fewer homes last month but a jump in permits for future construction to a 4-1/2 year high indicated the housing market recovery remains on track.


Another report on Wednesday showed wholesale prices rose for the first time in four months in January. However, the gain was smaller than expected and left scope for the Federal Reserve to keep buying bonds to stimulate the economy.






Housing starts dropped 8.5 percent in January to an 890,000-unit annual rate, pulled down by a sharp drop in the volatile multi-family unit category, the Commerce Department said.


But starts for single-family homes hit their highest level since July 2008 and permits for future construction, which lead starts by at least a month, were at their highest level since June of that year.


The drop in starts followed an outsized gain in December and was confined to the Northeast and Midwest, suggesting cold weather likely contributed to the pullback.


“The fundamentals are there and the drivers are looking good,” said Patrick Newport, an economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts. “We see more new construction this year. The only question is whether it will be in the multi-family or single-family segment.”


Housing has shifted from being a headwind for the economy to being a pillar of support, although mortgage rates have crept higher in recent weeks, cooling loan demand.


Luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers on Wednesday reported disappointing quarterly results, hurt in part by lower selling prices, but other homebuilders have been able to take advantage of the recovering market.


A separate report from the Labor Department showed producer prices rose 0.2 percent last month as rebounding food costs offset declining gasoline prices. Wholesale prices had slipped 0.3 percent in December, and economists had expected them to rise 0.4 percent in January.


U.S. financial markets were little moved by the data. By midday, stocks were down as weakness in energy and materials sectors weighed on the indexes, while Treasuries were slightly higher. The dollar was up against a basket of currencies.


INFLATION PRESSURES MUTED


Food prices accounted for more than 75 percent of the rise in wholesale prices last month.


Away from the spike in food prices, the producer price report showed inflation pressures were generally muted.


In the 12 months through January, wholesale prices were up 1.4 percent and data on Thursday is expected to show consumer inflation below the U.S. central bank’s goal of 2 percent.


“Inflationary pressures remain well contained,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial in Chicago. “The Federal Reserve would rather see inflation slightly higher in response to stronger economic conditions than benign because the recovery remains tepid.”


In an effort to drive down borrowing costs and spur stronger growth, the Fed last year launched an open-ended bond buying program and said it would keep it up until it saw a substantial improvement in the outlook for the labor market.


Wholesale prices excluding volatile food and energy costs edged up 0.2 percent last month after gaining 0.1 percent in December. In the 12 months through January, so-called core prices rose 1.8 percent, the smallest gain since February 2011.


A surge in the cost of fresh and dried vegetables pushed up food prices in January. Gasoline prices surprisingly recorded another substantial decline last month, even though prices at the pump have been rising almost every week this year.


The core PPI was lifted by a jump in the cost of drugs, while passenger car and light truck prices fell.


(Additional reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Tim Ahmann)


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Cameron calls for faster RBS reform







The Prime Minister, David Cameron, has called on Royal Bank of Scotland to speed up the overhaul of its business.






Speaking on a trip to India, Mr Cameron said he wanted the largely state-owned bank to “accelerate the adjustments” it was making.


He added he was “keen to examine all possibilities” for putting RBS back into the private sector.


However, he played down reports that the government was preparing to sell its stake in the bank.


RBS is 82%-owned by the tax payer after the government injected £45bn to stop it from collapsing during the financial crisis.


When asked to respond to comments that the government was preparing to sell its stake by 2014, Mr Cameron responded with: “These are all interesting questions for the future.”


“The first job is to turn around the performance of RBS and to strengthen its balance sheet, strengthen its business and that’s what [RBS chief executive] Stephen Hester and his team are doing.”


Mr Hester started the process of reforming the bank in 2009 and said it would take up to five years.


The aim of the overhaul is to make the bank safer and more profitable. It includes selling off its less important businesses and paring back its investment arm. A 30% stake in its insurance business, Direct Line, has already been floated on the stock market.


In November, the bank said that its restructuring plan was on track and would be completed in the next 18 months.


As part of the restructuring, RBS has been struggling to sell more than 300 branches by 2014, at the behest of the European Union, in return for its state aid. A deal with Santander fell through last year. The latest reports suggest that City investors are poised to enter the fray.


The bank was also recently fined for being embroiled in a global rate-rigging scandal. It was fined £390m ($ 610m) by UK and US authorities, which it intends to pay from past, current and future bonuses.


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Draghi dismisses talk of currency war, but watching euro






BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Central Bank President Mario Draghi sought to take the heat out of a debate about currency wars on Monday but said the ECB would still have to assess the economic impact of the euro’s strength.


The euro hit a 15-month high against the dollar earlier this month, complicating the ECB’s policy-making tasks by weighing on growth and feeding expectations that it may have to take fresh policy action, which some ECB members oppose.






While he expected a very gradual recovery in the euro zone later this year, Draghi said the euro’s exchange rate was important for growth and inflation and that it could threaten to pull down inflation too far.


“We will have to assess in the coming projections whether the exchange rate has had an impact on our inflationary profile, because it’s always through price stability that we address issues like that,” he told European lawmakers in Brussels.


The Group of 20 nations, responding to feverish debate last week about competitive devaluations between the world’s economic powers, said on Saturday there would be no currency war – essentially countries competing to weaken their currencies.


Japan’s expansive policies, which have driven down the yen, escaped direct criticism in a statement thrashed out in Moscow by G20 policymakers.


While Japan and the United States are pursuing loose monetary policies, the ECB is starting to unwind some of its crisis measures – a contrast has helped drive up the euro.


“Most of the exchange rate movements that we have seen were not explicitly targeted, they were the result of domestic macro economic policies meant to boost the economy,” Draghi said.


“In this sense, I find really excessive any language referring to currency wars,” he said, adding that the euro’s exchange rate was “around its long-term average.”


The G20 statement was not disappointing, he said.


“What I did say at the G20 in Moscow, I urged all parties to (exercise) very, very strong verbal discipline,” Draghi said.


While G20 finance ministers and central bank governors can promise not to devalue their currencies directly, there can be no guarantees while central banks are pumping money into economies to make them grow again.


The euro’s real effective exchange rate is up some 2.2 percent since the start of the year, and has risen by as much as 3 percent.


“SHAM DISCUSSION”


In Vienna, another ECB policymaker, Austria’s Ewald Nowotny, said the euro’s exchange rate versus the dollar was moving in a range seen previously and that the appreciation against the yen had not been dramatic.


“That means if it stays likes this we are having a sham discussion,” Nowotny added, calling talk of a currency war “absolutely unnecessary”.


Draghi reiterated the ECB’s view that the euro’s exchange rate is not a policy target but he added that “it is important for growth and price stability”.


The ECB targets inflation of close to, but below, 2 percent.


“Inflation is expected to decline to below 2 percent in the near term,” Draghi said.


Turning to the economic outlook for the euro zone, Draghi said weakness in early 2013 should be followed by a very gradual recovery later in the year.


“The risks surrounding the economic outlook for the euro area continue to be on the downside,” he said, though he did not single out the currency’s strength as a growth risk.


However, Draghi did say the appreciation of the euro was one of the “downside risks” to price stability, though overall these were broadly balanced.


He said repeatedly that the ECB’s monetary policy is “accommodative” and stressed that the central bank’s top priority is to enhance its transmission across the euro zone.


(Additional reporting by Michael Shields in Vienna, writing by Paul Carrel. Editing by Jeremy Gaunt.)


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French leader Hollande’s approval rating dips: poll






PARIS (Reuters) – French President Francois Hollande‘s approval rating slipped to 37 percent in February as pessimism about the economy overtook satisfaction with his military intervention against Islamist rebels in Mali, a poll showed on Sunday.


The IFOP survey published in weekly paper JDD showed that Hollande‘s backing had dropped by one percentage point since the previous month, giving him the same popularity rate as that of Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault.






Dissatisfaction with the Socialist president was strongest among small business owners, 73 percent of whom were unhappy; blue-collar workers, with 70 percent; and private sector workers, with 66 percent, the pollster said.


The findings show negative views on Hollande’s economic policies overshadowing feelings that he displayed strong leadership last month in sending French troops to Mali to help its government push back an offensive by Islamist rebels.


Grim economic news has dogged him since the start of 2013 as factory closures kept up pace, unemployment hovered near 10 percent and the national auditor, La Cour des Comptes, published a report highlighting lax management of state funds.


Meanwhile, the government has yet to find a buyer for the Petit-Couronne oil refinery in Normandy, which is set to close in April, and strife has worsened at Peugeot PSA’s Aulnay plant, which is set to close in 2014.


The government also said for the first time that it was unlikely to bring the public deficit down to 3 percent of GDP by the end of 2013 in line with European targets, acknowledging doubts expressed by independent economists.


Cour des Comptes chief Didier Migaud said politicians’ unwillingness to strip popular programs and attack niches in government was feeding “addiction” to public spending – which is higher in France as a percentage of GDP than any Western country aside from Denmark.


However, Migaud said the European Commission should allow for cyclical variations in the way it measures how countries have performed with regard to deficit targets, as EU-wide austerity policies had crimped activity.


“It’s clear that we cannot think without taking the economic context into consideration,” he told Europe 1 radio. “You see that growth is weak. Should we be taking that into consideration? Probably.”


(Reporting by Nicholas Vinocur; Editing by Mark Heinrich)


(This story was corrected to show unemployment at 10 percent)


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Carney dismisses concern about inflation expectations






MOSCOW (Reuters) – The future head of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, dismissed concern on Saturday about the danger of inflation expectations spiraling in Britain and elsewhere.


Carney, governor of the Bank of Canada, has been an advocate of flexible inflation targeting, and said last month that monetary policy was not maxed out in major economies.






He has said the Bank of England may need to commit to keeping highly accommodative monetary policy even after the economy and possibly inflation pick up.


Asked at a news conference on Saturday if there was a risk that inflation expectations in Britain and other members of the Group of 20 leading economies become unmoored because of loose monetary policy, he said: “The risks globally are deficient demand.”


Pressed about the issue in Britain, where inflation has been above the UK’s 2 percent target since December 2009, Carney said: “I think that’s a question for the governor of the Bank of England, and his name is Mervyn King.”


He was speaking after a meeting of G20 central bankers and finance ministers.


Separately, Carney declined to endorse an International Monetary Fund opinion that the Canadian dollar was 5 to 15 percent higher than warranted by long-term economic fundamentals.


“We don’t comment on levels of exchange rates. We’ve noted for some time that the Canadian dollar is persistently strong,” he said.


“It’s something we take into account in the setting of monetary policy in Canada. It’s one of the reasons why policy is as accommodative as it is.”


(Editing by Mike Peacock)


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TSX slips as golds offset gains in Rogers, Telus






TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada’s main stock index fell to a 1-1/2 week low on Friday, led by gold stocks such as Goldcorp Inc and Barrick Gold Corp , as the price of the precious metal tumbled to a six-month low on weakening investor demand.


The decline outweighed gains made by telecom stocks, Rogers Communications Inc and Telus Corp , which reported robust quarterly results.






Economic data showed U.S. manufacturing got off to a weak start this year as motor vehicle assembly tumbled, and Canadian manufacturing sales recorded the biggest decline in about 3-1/2 years in December.


Investors also followed developments from the G20 meeting in Moscow, looking for signs in its final communique of the direction currencies might be heading after a period of heightened volatility.


The biggest impact on the market was resource prices, with gold tumbling to a six-month low on weak investor demand, currency uncertainty and a dearth of physical demand from China due to the Lunar New Year holiday.


“Gold always sells off ahead of the G20 meetings,” said John Ing, president of Maison Placements Canada.


“A currency war is going on. There’s the fear that central banks who are trying to protect their currencies might threaten gold sales.”


At midmorning, the Toronto Stock Exchange‘s S&P/TSX composite index <.gsptse> was down 25.20 points, or 0.20 percent, at 12,696.59, after dropping earlier to 12,686.21, its lowest point since February 4. Six of the 10 main sectors on the index were trading higher.</.gsptse>


The materials sector, which includes mining stocks, slid 2 percent. Goldcorp fell 2.5 percent to C$ 33.82 despite posting a lower-than-expected drop in adjusted quarterly profit on Thursday. Rival miner Barrick Gold fell 1.7 percent to C$ 31.90.


Energy shares slipped 0.4 percent as oil prices fell, with Suncor Energy Inc declining 0.9 percent to C$ 31.90.


The telecoms sector added 1.6 percent. Rogers, the country’s biggest wireless company, posted a 30 percent rise in adjusted quarterly profit, increased its dividend and said its chief executive would leave the company early next year. Its shares gained 4 percent to C$ 47.29.


Telus, another telecom giant, posted a 23 percent rise in quarterly profit, helped by strong growth in its wireless business. The stock was up 1.3 percent to C$ 67.63.


Financials, the index’s weightiest sector, rose 0.3 percent.


(Editing by Bernadette Baum)


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Want a Dog Like Banana Joe? There Are 7 For Sale in America






After two days of frenzied canine competition, a five year-old black-and-tan Affenpinscher named Banana Joe was crowned champion at the Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday night. But for those dog enthusiasts captivated by the dog’s Wookiee-ish countenance and shock of black hair—and hoping to snatch up one of their very own—we say: Good luck.


The breed’s official site, recognized by the American Kennel Club, lists only 12 active breeders in all of North America. “The reason they’re rare,” says Nancy Baybutt, the Affenpinscher Club’s Breeder Referral Chair, “is they have small litters—some of them as small as a single puppy—and the dogs are so small themselves that they have whelping problems. If they don’t thrive, there’s not a lot of them to save.” She also credits history for their rarity. “It was a German dog [that] was decimated during World War II,” she says. “Afterwards people didn’t want a German breed. It just never had the popularity.” The gene pool for Affens is so small that one of Baybutt’s dogs is a relative of Banana Joe.






Right now, seven puppy Affenpinschers are available for sale in the United States, according to Baybutt. Two, both males, are located in Tallahassee, Fla., and five can be found in Cornville, Ariz. Of the latter litter, only one of the dogs will look like Banana Joe. “The rest are red,” says Baybutt, who notes that the breed comes in several colors. The dogs sell for around $ 2,500.


If that’s a little steep for you, larger Affenpinschers are bred “by the puppy mills,” says Baybutt, and can be purchased online. But these dogs aren’t recognized by the breed’s official standard. They go for about $ 400.


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Wall Street pauses after gains, awaits Obama address






NEW YORK (Reuters) – Stocks were little changed on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 holding near multi-year highs ahead of President Barack Obama‘s State of the Union address.


The economy will be a major topic of Obama‘s speech before a joint session of Congress set for 9 p.m. (0200 GMT Wednesday). Investors will listen for any clues on a deal with Republicans to avert automatic spending cuts due to take effect March 1.






The S&P 500 has risen in the past six weeks and is up 6.5 percent so far this year. But gains have been harder to come by since the benchmark S&P index hit a five-year high on February 1. The market has to consolidate strong gains at the year’s start while investors search for reasons to drive stocks higher.


“The market itself at this point has got to digest this six-plus percentage point move … we are due for that pause,” said Drew Nordlicht, managing director at HighTower Advisors in San Diego.


Investors are “looking for more data at this point going forward to support the thesis that corporate profits will continue to grow and the economy has turned the corner.”


The White House has signaled Obama in his speech will urge U.S. investment in infrastructure, manufacturing, clean energy and education. He is also expected to call for comprehensive trade talks with the European Union.


With earnings season moving to its latter stages, of the 353 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings, 70.3 percent have exceeded analysts’ expectations, above a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters according to Thomson Reuters data through Tuesday morning.


Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are estimated to have risen 5.3 percent, according to the data, above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 27.65 points, or 0.20 percent, to 13,998.89. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index <.spx> added 1.03 points, or 0.07 percent, to 1,518.04. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> dipped 1.60 points, or 0.05 percent, to 3,190.41.</.ixic></.spx></.dji>


Coca-Cola Co shares fell 1.9 percent to $ 37.88 and were the biggest drag on the Dow after the world’s largest soft drink maker reported quarterly revenue slightly below analysts’ estimates, hurt by a weaker-than-expected performance in Europe.


Housing shares climbed, led by a 12.9 percent jump in Masco Corp to $ 20.09 after the home improvement product maker posted fourth-quarter earnings and said it expects new home construction to show strong growth in 2013. The PHLX housing sector index <.hgx> gained 2.7 percent.</.hgx>


Avon Products shares surged 16.7 percent to $ 20.16 after the beauty products company reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit.


Goodyear Tire & Rubber shares lost 3.1 percent to $ 13.48 after it posted a stronger-than-expected quarterly profit but cut its 2013 forecast due to weakness in the European automotive market.


Michael Kors Holdings shares jumped 10.9 percent to $ 63.24 after the fashion company handily beat Wall Street‘s estimates and raised its full-year outlook.


(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Kenneth Barry)


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