A number of banks and investment brokers are under investigation over accusations of widespread fraud and illegal foreclosures, the Akashic Times can reveal.

Lawsuits are taking place against the Sun Trust banks, Indy Mac- now known as One West, the Bank of America, JP Morgan, and a number of oil investors and insurance companies in the state of Texas.

In what promises to be one of the most complex and widespread cases in America, the Sun Trust banks have been accused of illegally foreclosing on properties across the US. Meanwhile JP Morgan have been accused of working in collusion with insurance companies who allegedly offered insurance on oil investments which were later found to be fraudulent.

In a separate case, the Bank of America have been embroiled in a separate lawsuit with the Department of Justice in America, who have sued the bank the bank for allegedly defrauding investors in connection with the sale of $850 million in mortgage-backed securities.
The Justice Department complaint alleges that the Bank of America lied to investors about the risk attached to the mortgage loans the bank had packed into a large residential mortgage-backed security it was promoting in early 2008.

Both the Sun Trust and Indy Mac banks have been accused of similar practices.

But perhaps another major twist to the story is the parallels to a number of oil investment scams which were taking place across the state of Texas. And in the midst of it all, one man has vowed to bring all of those involved to justice.

Meet Al Forsberg. Alfred Olof Forsberg,70, lives in a small home in Yonkers, New York which is outside and just north of New York City. About 7 years ago he decided to invest in oil wells in Texas to fund his retirement. At the time he worked as a substitute teacher in Westchester, New York.

Forsberg is also a relation of the late Mayor of Bradford, John Arnold who was elected Lord Mayor of the Yorkshire town in 1913.

His family mainly worked in the textile industries and went from England to Australia and then to the United States. Like many unfortunate citizens of the time, some of Forsberg’s family lost much of their wealth during the Great Depression.

He said: “I grew up being very patriotic and can still see the tears rolling down the cheeks of my family as we would sing ‘God Save The King’ when Mr. Churchill was on the radio. I don’t recall the year, but we were still having ‘blackouts’ over here. When I asked my family why everyone was so sad, I simply heard the phrase; ‘Death before dishonor.’

“The idea that there might be crooked federal agents in my country was never thought as something that could be even remotely true. It was not until the Vietnam era that I found out most of the government was indeed crooked in one way or another.”
Before turning to a career in teaching, Forsberg had spent much of his time as a private investigator. He turned his attention towards private investigation after his dad was beaten up by patients in the Montrose Veterans hospital during the 1980s.

The security officials at the hospital covered it up and all was swept under the carpet. He started to gather evidence at the time, including pictures of his father covered in bruises, and daily hospital records.

His investigative skills would later draw the attention of the FBI and CIA which both offered him an interview – offers which he eventually turned down.

He said: “I was all set to work for the FBI/CIA folks when my father became very ill in 1982. My choice was to first protect my dying father as best I could. I never went to the interviews in New Jersey…even though I was told they had a meeting and would have ‘good news’ for me if I acted on it.”

In 2005, the oil market was pretty low and he figured that he could make some money off of it by investing. He said: “I figured that investing in oil would be a good thing to do. I was right. It was a good idea, but not with a bunch of crooks.

All I had was the equity in two homes, one in Yonkers and the other in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. But this should have been enough to use for investment – so I thought.

“Eventually, I had purchased $241,000 in 40 oil wells. Most of these were in Texas. I was aware of the risk, but figured that I only needed one to really hit. The problem was that ALL of the oil investments were a scam. And the banks and Insurance Companies were crooked as well!

“I was getting nowhere trying to get money from these investments. They told me that I would start receiving over $12,000 per month from just two of the wells I had and that it should last for about 12 years…going down a little each subsequent year.”

Little did he know at the time that those investments would be the beginning of a nightmare.

What follows is Forsberg’s account of what happened. It started when he invested in the Rogers Fund, a name given for one of the oil investments at the time. He used a broker called Michael Yorba and shortly afterwards set up a $5,000 commodity trading account and also put $40,000 into the Rogers Fund which was cleared by Man Financial.
Man Financial was operated by Jim Rogers, Allen Goodman, and Tom Price. Forsberg’s money was then sent to a J.P. Morgan Chase bank account.
But then, without proper consultation, Forsberg’s money was sent to a clearing company called REFCO by those who operate Man Financial.

A week later, Forsberg was told that REFCO had gone bankrupt. Now if all of this is starting to sound like a bait and switch scam, then you’d probably be right. But worse was to come, according to Forsberg.

Eventually he managed to get back $5000 back from the Rogers Fund, and was supposed to be getting the rest of the money back. At this point he still trusted Yorba, who had gained his trust by helping him to get back that $5000.

Forsberg was then told by a high court Judge, that he could only get back 70 per cent of the $40,000 he invested. It took nearly a year for all those payments to come through.
So for a while, everything looked as though it was back on track, and Yorba convinced Forsberg to invest in $241,000 in 40 oil wells.
Of course, the money disappeared and he never got a penny for his investments. But determined not to take this lying down, he put his investigative skills to good use and made a number of alarming discoveries and allegations which have all been included in his court filings.

He found out through a business partner of his that J.P. Morgan Chase bank and Lexon Insurance company were involved in the scam.  Chase bank allowed the oil scammers to open accounts and illegally commingle the money, he says. He further found out that there were 5800 similar cases just in Texas in a five year period. The scam had spread to 13 states. It is worth noting at this point that JP Morgan Chase bank is now being criminally investigated by the Department of Justice over its sale of mortgage securities. It is thought that the securitization practices contributed to the 2008 financial crisis. The Justice Department told J.P Morgan in May that prosecutors had “preliminarily concluded” that the bank violated civil securities laws related to mortgage securities it packaged and sold from 2005 to 2007.

The bank has already been sued over similar practices by Eric Schneiderman, New York attorney general.

Forsberg claims that his investigations also uncovered that J.P Morgan allowed the money from the oil scammers to fund terrorist organisations and black ops projects. These allegations have been cited in his court filings. At the time of going to press, those allegations have not been disputed by the defendants.

But his problems didn’t end there. Forsberg has also launched a lawsuit against the Sun Trust bank for illegally foreclosing on his property and misrepresenting themselves in court.

They are also said to have been involved in mortgage securities fraud. By making slight changes to their name and representing themselves as Sun Trust, LLC when it was actually Sun Trust, INC, they were able to distance themselves legally from previous accusations and operate under that entity.

According to Forsberg’s own investigations, the bank has also illegally foreclosed on 250,000 homes across Florida and 12,000 in New England. However, Forsberg is not the only one to report this. The bank itself has in the past acknowledged problems with some of its home possessions.

Last year, it was reported that an internal review conducted by the bank found problems with the bank’s home repossessions. In its 2010 annual report filed with U.S. securities regulators, some foreclosure affidavits were signed by employees who did not directly review documents to ensure accuracy and instead relied on the work of others.

The process, dubbed “robo-signing” by critics, forced some of the largest U.S. mortgage lenders to halt foreclosures  in 2011 due to growing criticism. Sun Trust was one of many banks to admit problems with its foreclosure procedures last year.

The internal review came after the bank, along with 13 others were hit with enforcement action by The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”), the Office of Thrift Supervision (“OTS”), and the Federal Reserve which ordered the bank to make amends for the scandal.

Other banks which were implicated in the scandal were Ally Financial/GMAC, Aurora Bank, Bank of America, Citigroup, EverBank, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, MetLife, OneWest Bank, PNC Financial, Sovereign Bank, SunTrust, U.S. Bancorp, and Wells Fargo.

The information was brought to light by a report published by the Federal Reserve which you can view here.

But the Federal Reserve, the OCC and OTS were not the only one’s conducting investigations. The FBI had also approached Forsberg – only this time it was in relation to the oil wells.

There was just one problem. He had no faith in the FBI or the court system who he says has been less than helpful in previous suits. He explained: “I was asked by the FBI to appear as a witness against one of the employees of the oil companies in their suit. Interesting that I filed in 2006 and all I can find out is that some people in the  government do not want it to see light. If the US Marshals do fly me to Texas, I have no confidence that plane will make a round trip. I believe they are all hoping that I will die of ‘natural’ causes and then they can walk away with everything

“A few weeks ago, I got a phone call from someone I never heard of and when I explained my problems to him, he said without hesitation: “No wonder you can’t get your case heard in court. You stumbled on a black ops program. That’s why the judge was told to keep quiet.”

As a result of his dealings with the oil scammers and the banks, Forsberg has now been forced to live on just $356.10 per month plus $200 in food stamps.

Both his lawsuits against the banks and scammers and the civil suits launched by the Department of Justice are, as of yet, ongoing. Forsberg has since set up a website (banking-fraud.com) dedicated to the cause.

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