HOT: Investment-Fraud Arrests of 500 to Be Announced Today

Bloomberg reports:

The Justice Department today will announce arrests in a crackdown on investment frauds including Ponzi schemes and stock market manipulations, according to a U.S. law enforcement official familiar with the matter.

The law enforcement operation, which began in August, involves more than 300 criminal defendants and 180 civil defendants, according to the official, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Two things to keep in mind here.

First, given the laws and regulations on the books, the DOJ and SEC could pretty much charge anyone with a Charles Schwab account with some securities violation, if they wanted to.

Second, it is apparently okay, as evidenced by this leak, for the DOJ/SEC to illegally pass information to select reporters, to curry favor with them, in return for favorable coverage of the arrests and any court trials.

These are the leaks and inside trading of information that should be investigated, but never will be.

Instead, we will now have enough arrests, perp walks and show trials of mostly innocent, that the SEC  could justify launching its own cable channel.