BRAVA

Corporate Psychology

Member Society for Human Resource Management SHRM

Member American Psychological Association APA

BRAVA provides HR Consulting, HR Testing and Psychological assessment for hiring, selection or professional development purposes for entry level, to mid-to-senior levels, to in-depth evaluations appropriate for key leadership and financial positions, including CEO's, CFO's and Board of Directors. Our assessment process determines a person's intelligence, professional skills, pattern of personality strengths and weaknesses as they relate to a particular position, the work environment, and the organizational culture.

BRAVA corporate HR Consulting, training and testing represents state of the art assessments by category with technology that delivers the most comprehensive assessment of executives available on the market today, including assessment of leadership, ethics, integrity, and the "corporate psychopath."

BRAVA provides seminars to corporations on Professional Ethics and White Collar Crime or " Why Not and How Not to Lie, Cheat and Steal" or any topic of your choice.

Today's business environment has an abundance of con artists and psychopaths (think Bernard Madoff and the SEC is not going to protect you as they never asked to see one confirmation of his trades) who are more savvy and sophisticated than ever, engineering everything from internet fraud, federal securities fraud, corporate accounting fraud, Ponzi scheme stock market fraud, insurance, mortgage, attorney/judge fraud, public officials' corruption fraud, and health care frauds.

Learn how to protect yourself, visit www.fbi.gov or links below:

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/what_we_investigate

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/white_collar

http://www.fbi.gov/scams-safety/

And, when you are in doubt, just contact Brava info@bravacorp.com for our human resource assessments and to learn more about today's corporate "con artist culture" and corporate psychopaths. Fraud always migrates to the softest targets!

Ruthless and Remorseless psychopaths roam the globe, from Wall Street to Jakarta, Indonesia – 7/17/2009 AP News: "Suicide bombers who checked in as guests smuggled explosives into Ritz Carlton & Marriott luxury hotels in Indonesia's capital and set off a pair of heavy blasts Friday that killed eight people and wounded more than 50, investigators said."

For your information, a psychopath can be diagnosed by age 8, third grade, and typically they are male. Brava Psychology Services thinks that all third grade teachers should be Child Psychologists or Child Psychiatrists or consultants on staff. It would save the people of the world and on "Wall Street" a lot of grief!

Watch Video White Collar Crime:

Ruthless and Remorseless Corporate Psychopath

Leadership Development Series

Preserving a Culture of Integrity

Executive Leadership in  America's Corporations

Corporate Deceit: Cues that the CEO is Lying

People in Power are Better Liars

Leadership Psychology Testing & Assessments

Corporate Psychology Testing & Consulting

A "McChrystal Moment"

Watch Stanley McChrystal: Listen, learn ... then lead.

Four-star general Stanley McChrystal shares what he learned about leadership over his decades in the military. How can you build a sense of shared purpose among people of many ages and skill sets? By listening and learning -- and addressing the possibility of failure.

Watch Richard Branson on the ups and downs of his career.

Why you should listen to him: Richard Branson bootstrapped his way from record-shop owner to head of the Virgin empire. Now he's focusing his boundless energy on saving our environment. He's ballooned across the Atlantic, floated down the Thames with the Sex Pistols, and been knighted by the Queen. His megabrand,Virgin, is home to more than 250 companies, from gyms, gambling houses and bridal boutiques to fleets of planes, trains and limousines. The man even owns his own island.

And now Richard Branson is moving onward and upward into space (tourism): Virgin Galactic's Philippe Starck-designed, the first Burt Rutan-engineered spacecraft, The Enterprise, completed its first captive carry in early 2010 and is slated to start carrying passengers into the thermosphere in 2012, at $200,000 a ticket.

Watch Sheryl Sandberg: Why we have too few women leaders. And, how are we going to fix this? Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Harvard MBA 1995, looks at why a smaller percentage of women than men reach the top of their professions -- and offers 3 powerful pieces of advice to women aiming for the C-suite or visit http://www.leanin.org/

As the COO at the helm of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg juggles the tasks of being a wife, and a mother to a 2 and 5 year old, and monetizing the world's largest social networking site while keeping its users happy and engaged. Today she manages Facebook's sales, marketing, business development, human resources, public policy and communications. Sandberg previously managed Google's successful online sales and operations program and served as an economist for the World Bank and Chief of Staff at the US Treasury Department.

Watch Pamela Meyer: How to Spot Liars

Watch Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action

Simon Sinek has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership all starting with a golden circle and the question "Why?" His examples include Apple, Martin Luther King, and the Wright brothers -- and as a counterpoint Tivo. In 2009, Simon Sinek released the book "Start With Why" -- a synopsis of the theory he has begun using to teach others how to become effective leaders and inspire change.

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Corporate Kleptocracy Report

Page 2>>

Intro Reading: How to Survive in Federal Prison

Russell Wasendorf, Sr.’s 50-year sentence was based on a variety of factors, including the amount of financial loss, the sophisticated means used to execute the fraud, and the large number of victims. But he’s not the only subject of an FBI financial fraud case to end up with an extraordinarily lengthy prison sentence.

Allen Stanford—110 Years: Chairman of the board of Stanford International Bank, he orchestrated a 20-year investment fraud scheme that helped him steal $7 billion to finance his personal businesses. Speaking at his sentencing on behalf of those he defrauded, a woman told Stanford that “many of the victims had lived the proverbial American dream, only to have it snatched away from them in the name of greed.

Thomas Petters—50 Years: Petters stole billions of dollars in money and property by inducing investors to provide his company with funds to purchase merchandise that was to be resold to retailers at a profit. Of course, no such purchases were made. Then-Minneapolis Special Agent in Charge Ralph Boelter said he hoped that Petters’ “appropriate” 50-year sentence “will serve as an effective deterrent to those similarly inclined.

Bernard Madoff—150 Years: Founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, LLC, he engineered a Ponzi scheme that resulted in billions of dollars of losses to thousands of investors. The federal judge who sentenced him said that Madoff’s “fraud was staggering.” 

June 15, 2012, Rajat Gupta was found guilty(2 year federal prison sentence) of conspiracy and securities fraud for leaking boardroom secrets to the billionaire hedge fund manager, Raj Rajaratnam who is now serving 11 years in federal prison. Prosecutors won the insider trading case largely built on circumstantial evidence like phone records and trading logs.

October 13, 2011: Raj Rajaratnam, a self-made hedge fund tycoon convicted in the biggest Wall Street trading scandal in a generation, was ordered on Thursday to serve 11 years in prison, one of the longest sentences on record in an insider-trading case. US Federal Prosecutors have called Rajaratnam, age 54, the "modern face'' of insider trading. He was ordered to pay the SEC $92.8Million in a civil suit; and $63.8 Million in his criminal case.

July 30, 2010: Samuel Wyly was sued by U.S. regulators who accused him of misleading investors while selling hundreds of millions of dollars in stock. The Wylys used “an elaborate sham system of trusts and subsidiary companies” in the Isle of Man and Cayman Islands over a 13-year period to hide control of securities linked to companies where they were board members, the Securities and Exchange Commission said yesterday in a lawsuit filed in New York federal court. They illegally kept investors in the dark as they sold off holdings, and in one case made illegal insider trades, the SEC said. “The cloak of secrecy has been lifted from the complex web of foreign structures used by the Wylys to evade the securities laws,” the SEC’s deputy enforcement director, Lorin Reisner, said in a statement. “They used these structures to conceal hundreds of millions of dollars of gains in violation of the disclosure requirements for corporate insiders.”

June 19, 2009 US Dept. of Justice announced that Texas Billiionaire Allen Stanford has been arrested and indicted on criminal charges stemming from his alleged operation of a $8 Billion massive investment fraud operation that bilked potentially thousands of Americans. Stanford cast himself as an off-shore investment guru to the transatlantic jet set. Stanford was named by Forbes magazine as the 205th richest American in 2008. Stanford's attorney, Dick Deguerin, said that he is confident that a jury will find him not guilty of any criminal wrongdoing.

June 18, 2009 Birmingham, Ala. – A state judge on Thursday ordered former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy to pay about $2.8 billion to shareholders who sued over accounting fraud at the rehabilitation chain.Richard Scrushy was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison for bribery, and a federal judge denied his bid to remain free pending appeal, putting the HealthSouth founder behind bars immediately.

June 28, 2008 Washington, DC: Major international airlines–Air France, Cathay Pacific Airways, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Martinair and SAS– have agreed to each plead guilty and pay criminal fines totaling $504 million for participating in a multi–year conspiracy to fix prices for air cargo rates.  Of the $504 million in fines, Air France-KLM, has agreed to pay a $350 million criminal fine, the second highest fine ever levied in a criminal antitrust prosecution.

Feb. 16, 2008 -- Refco Inc.'s former Chairman Phillip Bennett, faces possible life in prison after pleading guilty to fraud and conspiracy in a scheme that cost investors $2.4 billion. Bennett entered his guilty plea in Manhattan US Federal District Court for deceiving banks, auditors, and investors. ``I know I was wrong, and I deeply regret it,'' Bennett, told U.S. District Judge Buchwald, his voice cracking as he spoke. ``I take full responsibility for my conduct.'' Bennett, 59, pleaded guilty to all 20 counts in a federal indictment, including securities and wire-fraud, conspiracy, money laundering and bank fraud. Under U.S. guidelines, Bennett faces life imprisonment with a maximum penalty of 315 years, as well as forfeiture of $2.4 billion. Defendants in the ``post-Enron era'' of corporate crime prosecutions face the ``possibility that their residence in the US Federal Bureau of Prisons is the last residence they're going to have.''

Phillip Bennett, the former head of brokerage firm Refco was  sentenced July 2008 to 16 years in prison for a $1.5Billion fraud that ultimately destroyed the company. In February 2008 Bennett pleaded guilty in a New York City US Federal Court to 20 counts of conspiracy and fraud, two-and-a-half years after his arrest. Prosecutors said losses connected to the fraud topped $1.5bn.

August 7, 2007 Jurors in Federal District Court in San Francisco convicted the former chief executive of Brocade Communications Systems, Gregory L. Reyes, 44, on 10 counts of conspiracy and fraud. Mr. Reyes received his BS in Mechanical Engineering at Rensselar Polytechnical Institute and an MS in Management from Stevens Institute of Technology. Most of the backdating cases, including the one against Mr. Reyes, hinged on proving that the defendants knowingly manipulated an option grant date to defraud investors in publicly held companies. The verdict sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley and law offices around the country, which are representing dozens of companies and hundreds of executives who have been entangled in the widespread options back -dating scandal.

July 27, 2007 -- Joseph Nacchio, Graduate of MIT and former CEO of Qwest Communications International Inc., was sentenced to six years in prison for insider trading of $52 million in company shares. U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham ordered Nacchio to forfeit $52 million and pay a fine of $19 million, refusing his request for a sentence of probation. Sept. 29, 2006 - A Denver federal judge Friday approved a $400 million class-action settlement of shareholder claims against Qwest Communications but slashed attorney fees from $96 million to $60 million.

January 17, 2007: Walter Forbes, Harvard MBA, sentenced to 12 years and seven months in federal prison and ordered him to pay $3.275 BILLION in restitution.  The former Cendant Corp. Chairman was found guilty of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and two counts of making false statements, and a decade-long accounting scheme that inflated income at Cendant. The accounting fraud caused Cendant shares to freefall $14 billion in market value in a single day in 1998. His co-defendant, former Cendant Vice Chairman E. Kirk Shelton, Harvard MBA, was sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay billions in restitution to the company.

In May 2006, Kirk Sean Wright, the founder and Chief Executive Officer of International Management Associates (IMA), was charged with 22 counts of mail fraud and three counts of Securities Fraud relating to his improper operation of IMA. IMA is a high-yield hedge fund in Atlanta, GA managing more than $184 million in assets, including those of a group of current and former NFL players.

Huge pay packages for corporate CEOs mentioned the breath-taking $124.8 million total compensation of United Health Group (parent of United Healthcare) CEO William McGuire. At UnitedHealth, there was significant evidence that options were backdated for insiders and employees at all levels of the company between 1994 and 2002. But among the most substantial and egregious, according to the law firm’s report, were those valued at $1.1 Billion awarded to Dr. McGuire, the company’s longtime chairman and chief executive who resigned October 16, 2006. Dr. McGuire, who has already received more than $500 million by cashing in some of his options and has others, worth at least $1.6 billion, still in his name.The Justice Department, the Minnesota Attorney General’s office, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Internal Revenue Service are all investigating UnitedHealth’s options practices. Even the man named to replace Dr. McGuire as chief executive has been a beneficiary of backdated options. Through backdating, stock options can be manipulated to increase their value.The heads of three well-known technology companies lost their jobs this week as the result of a scandal sweeping through the business world over the improper backdating of stock options --135 companies implicated in backdating controversies are being investigatigated by the SEC, DOJ, IRS.

October 2006 Kobi Alexander is fighting extradition from Namibia on US federal charges related to his company's options practices.

October 12 2006 WASHINGTON -- More criminal indictments will come down the pike as corporate America struggles with the ever-growing stock options backdating scandal, ccording to an assistant director at the FBI.

"Backdating stock options is basically betting on a horse race that's already been run," FBI spokesperson said. "It's harmful to the company and does not create a level playing field for investors."

Dennis Kozlowski was convicted on June 17, 2005 for misappropriation of Tyco's corporate funds, among other charges. The prosecution won a total of 22 counts of grand larceny for $150 million in unauthorized bonuses. He was convicted of fraud against the company shareholders for an amount of more than $400 million.

The hedge fund industry is also a growth area on the FBI's radar screen.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 31 2006 - The Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil fraud charges Wednesday against two executives of KL Group, a hedge fund in Palm Beach, Fla. The S.E.C. charged that Won Sok Lee, Yung Bae Kim and another unidentified defendant "defrauded investors through misrepresentations and omissions concerning the profitability and security of their investments in the hedge funds." The whereabouts of Mr. Kim and Mr. Lee are unknown and they do not have any known legal counsel, according to the S.E.C. senior trial counsel, Scott A. Masel. In March, the hedge fund was shut down and its assets frozen by a Florida judge after the S.E.C. filed a civil action to halt what it described as an $81 million fraud. The March complaint charged that the KL Group, a related trading entity and the KL principals, Won Sok Lee, John Kim and Yung Bae Kim, fraudulently raised over $81 million, attracting investors by using fake account statements showing that the hedge funds were profitable." June 29, 2007 Yung Bae Kim, pled guilty today in US District Court to two felonies one count of conspiracy to commit mail and one count of wire fraud.  He faces a maximum period of twenty-five (25) years in prison, five years of supervised release, a fine of $500,000 and restitution to victims of the fraud.

Gisela Valladares, owner of PRN Home Health Care, Inc., a Miami health care company has been convicted on charges of defrauding the Medicare program of $20Million of fraudulent Medicare billings.

July 13, 2007 - Lord Conrad Black, former heard of Hollinger International, was found guilty of three counts of mail fraud and a single count of obstruction of justice by the Chicago jury. He faces 35 years in a federal prison.

According to the FBI, more than 90 hedge funds have been investigated in the past couple of years. The agency is concerned over the fast-paced growth and lack of regulation within the $1.2 trillion hedge fund industry and considers the industry to be a growing threat for average investors as more and more pension funds have startJed investing in the riskier market. Amaranth Advisors - a 32 year old, Brian Hunter, made brash bets losing its investors $6Billion dollars. Yet, "We have every intention of continuing in business and generating for our investors the same consistently high risk-adjusted returns which have been our hallmark, and we are fully committed to doing so," Nicholas Maounis said.

"Hedge funds are the wild, wild west of investing." "The problem comes when hedge funds become more and more like Ponzi schemes."

Average investors in pension funds may not know where their money is going. And given the lack of regulation and the generally secretive nature of the hedge fund industry, it's difficult for average investors to hash out when a hedge fund is defrauding them. Case in point: Bayou Management, which collapsed earlier this year as evidence emerged that the founder of the hedge fund lied to investors about its stellar returns.

Corporate Fraud remains the highest priority of the Financial Crimes Section and the FBI is committed to dealing with the significant crime problem. As of the end of Fiscal Year (FY) 2006, 490 Corporate Fraud cases are being pursued by FBI field offices throughout the U.S., 19 of which involve losses to public investors that individually exceed $1 billion.

Corporate Fraud investigations involve the following activities:

(1) Falsification of financial information, including:
(a) False accounting entries
(b) Bogus trades designed to inflate profit or hide losses
(c) False transactions designed to evade regulatory oversight

(2) Self-dealing by corporate insiders, including:
(a) Insider trading
(b) Kickbacks
(c) Backdating of executive stock options
(d) Misuse of corporate property for personal gain
(e) Individual tax violations related to self-dealing

(3) Fraud in connection with an otherwise legitimately-operated mutual or hedge fund:
(a) Late trading
(b) Certain market timing schemes
(c) Falsification of net asset values
(d) Other fraudulent or abusive trading practices by, within, or involving a mutual or hedge fund

(4) Obstruction of justice designed to conceal any of the above-noted types of criminal conduct, particularly when the obstruction impedes the inquiries of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), other regulatory agencies, and/or law enforcement agencies.

Learn how to protect yourself visit

http://www.fbi.gov/becrimesmart.htm

Financial Crimes

Corporate & Accounting Fraud

Securities & Commodities Fraud

Health Medical Care Fraud

Mortgage Fraud Warning

Insurance Fraud

Mass Marketing Fraud

Penny Stock Pump & Dump Fraud

Internet Fraud

Hedge Fund Fraud

Brankruptcy Fraud

Asset Forefeiture/Money Laundering

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