A crackdown on US corporate crooks gathered pace Wednesday as prosecutors moved on multiple fronts against scandals at Enron Corp, ImClone and WorldCom.
With midterm elections looming, financial scandals have badly hit Wall Street and held back attempts to bolster confidence in the US economy.
As former Enron finance chief Andrew Fastow was charged in Houston, Texas, Deputy US Attorney General Larry Thompson, head of a presidential corporate fraud task force, said: "Our strategy is straightforward. We aim to put the bad guys in prison and take away their money."
Investigators took aim at three corporate targets:
-- Fastow was led in handcuffs to a Houston federal court where he was charged with fraud and money laundering.
-- At the same time, an assistant to lifestyle guru Martha Stewart's broker pleaded guilty to misleading investigators. The plea was apparently part of a deal in which he will testify about insider trading related to shares in ImClone.
-- On Monday, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer sued five telecom executives for allegedly profiteering from share offerings and phony stock ratings to the tune of more than US$1.5 billion.
Global stock markets have been shaken by the shattered confidence triggered by an avalanche of accounting scandals that began with Enron's bankruptcy last December.
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