<figure id="attachment_15152" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-15152" style="width: 336px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="https://www.fraudswatch.com/enron-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-15152"><img class="wp-image-15152" src="https://www.fraudswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/enron-1-1.jpg" alt="Enron Declared Bankruptcy" width="336" height="252" /></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-15152" class="wp-caption-text"><em><strong>Enron Declared Bankruptcy</strong></em></figcaption></figure>
<p><span class="blackgraphtx">When Enron declared bankruptcy in December 2001 and took with it the nest eggs of thousands of employees and stockholders, the FBI field office in Houston assigned two agents to investigate. Within weeks, the number of agents and support staff assigned to the case grew to 45, many hand-picked from field offices around the country for their expertise in traversing even the most circuitous paper trails.</span></p>
<p><span class="blackgraphtx">The case would become the largest and most complex white-collar investigation in FBI history and spawn a unique investigative task force of prosecutors, agents and analysts in Houston and Washington, D.C., each uniquely skilled at drilling deep into balance sheets and following the money. Their job: to learn how company officials perpetrated fraud on such a grand scale, build a strong criminal case, and hold accountable those responsible.</span></p>
<p><span class="blackgraphtx">The five-year investigation led to jury convictions of top Enron officials who enriched themselves by cheating investors with sham accounting, and guilty pleas from some 16 others who were in on it. Being a major case, it was administered at the highest levels of the FBI and the Department of Justice, as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission. In Houston, Supervisory Special Agent (SSA) Michael E. Anderson, chief of his office’s economic crimes squad, led the investigation on the ground. He describes how agents assembled the case:</span></p>
<ul>
<li><span class="blackgraphtx">In January 2002, agents executed a consent search of Enron’s 50-story corporate headquarters building. The search lasted nine days as investigators unearthed critical documents and emerged with over 500 boxes of evidence. At the same time, agents conducted more than 100 interviews that helped identify fresh leads for investigators.</span></li>
<li><span class="blackgraphtx">In February 2002, Enron’s board of directors issued findings from its own internal investigation—the Powers Report, named for William Powers Jr., head of the special investigation committee that wrote it—that said Enron executives reaped millions by violating basic accounting principles. “That was a gold mine,” SSA Anderson said. Agents conducted over 1,800 interviews in the U.S. and overseas.</span></li>
<li><span class="blackgraphtx">Agents expert at teasing forensic evidence from computers—a Computer Analysis and Response Team—collected over four terabytes (imagine 4,000 copies of an encyclopedia) of data, including e-mail from over 600 employees. Meanwhile, the <a href="http://www.ghrcfl.org/">Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory in Houston</a> processed some 30 terabytes of data, making still more sense of the paper trail and flagging important leads for investigators.</span></li>
<li><span class="blackgraphtx"><a class="wpil_keyword_link" href="https://www.fraudswatch.com/tag/financial-fraud/" title="Financial" data-wpil-keyword-link="linked" data-wpil-monitor-id="491">Financial</a> analysts combed through hundreds of bank and brokerage accounts to track fraudulent purchases, which proved critical in securing restraining orders, seizing more than $168 million in assets and supporting insider trading charges.</span></li>
</ul>
<p><span class="blackgraphtx">What emerged was a mosaic of inter-related schemes—some hardly more than smoke and mirrors—that toppled a company that once boasted annual revenues over $150 billion. Enron ripped off California, selling energy to the state’s strapped utilities at over-inflated rates. Officials overstated the company’s fledgling Broadband venture, hitching the company’s stock price to the star of the still-nascent Internet bubble. The company overvalued its international assets by billions to generate cash flow and manipulated its quarterly earnings statements to keep Wall Street happy and its stock price afloat.</span></p>
<p><span class="blackgraphtx">SSA Anderson said it was the thousands of victims, hard-working employees who lost their pensions, and the desire to hold accountable those responsible for the failure of Enron, that motivated agents, analysts, and others on the Enron Task Force to press ahead on the massive case.</span></p>
<p><span class="blackgraphtx">“They lost their retirements, their health insurance, their livelihoods. That kept everyone interested in pressing forward in spite of the huge personal sacrifices inherent in working a major case for over five years,” Anderson says. “If it’s some consolation to them, the people that were responsible for this fraud were punished for it.”</span></p>
<p> ;</p>
<h3 class="graphicboxheader">Ten Years Later: The Enron Case</h3>
<p><span class="blackgraphtx">It was 10 years ago this month that the collapse of Enron precipitated what would become the most complex white-collar crime investigation in the FBI’s history.</span></p>
<p><span class="blackgraphtx">Top officials at the Houston-based company cheated investors and enriched themselves through complex accounting gimmicks like overvaluing assets to boost cash flow and earnings statements, which made the company even more appealing to investors. When the company declared bankruptcy in December 2001, investors lost millions, prompting the FBI and other federal agencies to investigate.</span></p>
<p><span class="blackgraphtx">The sheer magnitude of the case prompted creation of the multi-agency Enron Task Force, a unique blend of investigators and analysts from the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation Division, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and prosecutors from the Department of Justice.</span></p>
<p><span class="blackgraphtx">Agents conducted more than 1,800 interviews and collected more than 3,000 boxes of evidence and more than four terabytes of digitized data. More than $164 million was seized; to date about $90 million has been forfeited to help compensate victims. Twenty-two people have been convicted for their actions related to the fraud, including Enron’s chief executive officer, the president/chief operating officer, the chief financial officer, the chief accounting officer, and others.</span></p>
<p><span class="blackgraphtx">“The Enron Task Force’s efforts resulted in the convictions of nearly all of Enron’s executive management team,” said Michael E. Anderson, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Houston Division, who led the FBI’s Enron Task Force in Houston. “The task force represented a model task force—the participating agencies selflessly and effectively worked together in accomplishing significant results. The case demonstrated to Wall Street and the business community that they will be held accountable.”</span></p>
<p><span class="blackgraphtx"><b>Resources:</b><br />
</span></p>
<p><span class="blackgraphtx">&#8211; <a class="internal-link" href="https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2006/december/enron_121306">A Look Back at the Enron Case</a><br />
&#8211; <a class="external-link" title="" href="http://www.justice.gov/archive/index-enron.html" target="_self" rel="noopener"><span class="external-link">Enron trial exhibits and documents</span></a></span></p>

Enron Case: Crime in the Suites

Enron Declared Bankruptcy
FraudsWatch is а site reporting on fraud and scammers on internet, in financial services and personal. Providing a daily news service publishes articles contributed by experts; is widely reported in thе latest compliance requirements, and offers very broad coverage of thе latest online theft cases, pending investigations and threats of fraud.
Leave a Comment


The Ultimate Guide to Avoiding Online Scams
Stay safe online! Our comprehensive 2025 guide covers phishing, AI scams, investment fraud & more. Learn red flags, prevention steps & how to report scams. Protect yourself now via Fraudswatch.com.
Read More
Categories
- AOL Aim Live ATT
- Celebrities Scammed
- Credit Card
- Credit Scam
- Email Man-Male Scammers
- Email Scam List
- Email Scams Examples
- Fraud
- Fraud News From World
- Fraud Prevention
- Gmail.com
- Hotmail.com
- Insurance
- Jobsearch Scams
- Loans
- Military Scammer
- Mortgage
- Nigerian 419
- Report Fraud
- Romance Scammer
- Russian Email Scam
- Scammer
- Scams Ways
- Shopping & Saving Money
- Spam
- White-Collar Crime
- Yahoo.com
Recent Posts
- The Unseen Battlefield: Your Definitive 2025 Guide to Advanced Scam Detection July 9, 2025
- Bulletproof Betrayal: Inside the $5.2 Million ShotStop Fraud That Sold Counterfeit Body Armor to America’s Law Enforcement July 8, 2025
- The Weapon of Experience: Inside the $28M Memphis Pharmacy Fraud and a Prior Conviction at the Heart of a Record-Breaking National Takedown July 2, 2025
- Chicago Businessman Convicted in $55 Million Fraud Scheme Targeting COVID-19 Relief Funds and Financial Institutions July 2, 2025
- Betrayal in the Classroom: An In-Depth Analysis of the Unprecedented Criminal Charges Against the School District of Philadelphia for Asbestos Failures June 28, 2025
Tags
Bank Fraud
Banking Fraud
Bankruptcy Fraud
Bribery Scheme
Business Fraud
Celebrities Scammed
Charity Fraud
Commodities Fraud
Consumer Fraud
Consumer Protection
COVID-19 relief fraud
Credit
Credit card
Credit Card Fraud
Credit Repair
Credit Repair Scams
Crime
Cyber Crime
Cybercrime
Cyber Criminals
Cybersecurity
data breach
Dating Scammer
Elder Fraud
Elder Justice
Email
Email Letter
Email Scam
Email Scam Examamples
Email Scam Example
Email Scam Examples
Email Scams
Email Scams Examples
False Claims Act
FBI
Fedex
Financial Crime
Financial Fraud
Fraud
fraud prevention
Fraud Scheme
Health
Health and Wellness Scams
Health Care Fraud
Healthcare Fraud
Identity Theft
Immigration Fraud
Insurance
Insurance Fraud
Internet Fraud
Investment Fraud
job
Job Scam
job scams
Loan
Loan Fraud
Loan Scam
Loans Fraud
Lottery Scam
Mail Fraud
Medicare Fraud
Microsoft
Military Scammer
Military Scammer LT. JEFFREY MILLER
Military Scammers
Money Laundering
Money Laundering Scheme
Mortgage
Mortgage Fraud
Mortgage Scam
Mortgage Scams
National Security
Nigerian
Nigerian 419
Nigerian Scam
online fraud
Online Scams
PayPal
personal information
Phishing
Phishing Scams
Ponzi Scheme
Public Corruption
Ransomware
Report Fraud
Romance Scam
Romance Scammer
Romance Scammers
Romance Scams
Scam
Scammer
Scammers
scams
Securities Fraud
spam
Tax Evasion
Tax Fraud
Travel Scams
White Collar Crimes
wire fraud