Another Banker Down...Possible Retaliation For London Whale Scandal

Thanks to The Feral Irishman for the tip on this one today.

Kenneth Bellando was a 28 year old banker who is the latest in the string of suicides that have been piling up this year. He worked for Levy Capital since January of this year. That's only 2 months. He previously worked as an investment analyst over at JP Morgan. His father, John Bellando and his brother, also named John, is a top chief investment officer at JP Morgan and works on risk exposure valuations.

In 2012, John Bellando, Jr's. emails were cited during testimony at the Senate Finance Committee's inquiry into the banks losses during the London Whale trade scandal. If you aren't aware of the London Whale fiasco, I will try to explain the gist of it here.

The London Whale Scandal happened in 2012 when JP Morgan traders bet huge sums of money on complex financial instruments and then covered up their losses when trades went wrong. One of the highest paid bankers in London at that time was Bruno Iksil. He was responsible for losing the bank 1.2 billion (euro) through bets of derivative credit default swaps. Bruno agreed to testify against his colleagues and it is believed he was granted immunity by American prosecutors.

JP Morgan agreed to pay 920 million (USD) in fines to US and British regulators and even publicly admitted to wrongdoing in this fiasco. That is very rare for them to do and I am certain it came with no shortage of pride being kicked in the teeth. The total amount of losses came to 6.2 billion. That's not chump change, even to a big bank.

Two other traders who worked with Bruno Iksil in London, Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout, were criminally charged by US prosecutors for their role in the scandal. They were accused of attempting to hide the ever mounting losses. Even though Bruno himself played a huge role in this debacle, because he chose to sing like a canary, he was not charged.

John Bellando, the brother of suicidal banker, Kenneth Bellando, had his emails used as testimony against JP Morgan. I will dig into this more later but for the time being, nothing seems right or plausible about these suicides. There are too many irregularities concerning all of these bankers. Here is a rundown of the ones who have committed suicide this year.

1. William Broeksmit, a 58-year-old former senior executive for Deutsche Bank AG, was found dead in at home after apparently taking his own life in South Kensington in central London, on January 26

2. Karl Slym, the 51 year old Tata Motors managing director was discovered dead on the fourth floor of the Shangri-La hotel in Bangkok on January 27

3. Gabriel Magee, the 39-year-old JP Morgan employee, whodied after plummeting from the roof of the JP Morgan European headquarters in London's Canary Wharf on January 27

4. Mike Dueker, the 50-year-old chief economist of US bank Russell Investments was discovered dead near to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington State on January 31

5. Richard Talley, the 57 year old founder of American Title Services in Centennial, Colorado, was found dead on February 4 after apparently shooting himself with a nail gun.

6. Tim Dickenson, who was a U.K.-based communications director at Swiss Re AG, died in late January, in as yet unexplained circumstances

7. Ryan Henry Crane, the 37 year old executive at JP Morgan died in an alleged suicide just a few weeks ago on February 3 at his home in Connecticut

8. Li Junjie, 33-year-old banker in Hong Kong jumped from the JP Morgan HQ in Hong Kong on February 19

9. James Stuart, the former National Bank of Commerce CEO was found dead in Scottsdale, Arizona on the morning of February 19. The cause of death has yet to be announced

10. Autumn Radtke, the CEO of First Meta, a digital currency exchange firm who was found dead on February 28 outside her Singapore apartment.

11. Ed Reilly, 47, a divorced father-of-three who worked as a trader at Vertical Group in Manhattan. He jumped in front of a Long Island Rail Road train on March 11

12. Kenneth Bellando, 28, an investment banker at Levy Capital Partners jumped off his building in Manhattan's Upper East Side on March 12