Feds: No, Florida, You're Not Allowed to Be a Pirate Colony

Nobody wants to admit it, but if the federal government is going to make fraud-busting its new "War on [hot topic]," then it's going to deal another blow to the South Florida economy.It's just that fraud's what we're good at! Take the case of Christopher Maury. The West Palm man...

By Thomas Francis

July 21, 2009

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Nobody wants to admit it, but if the federal government is going to make fraud-busting its new "War on [hot topic]," then it's going to deal another blow to the South Florida economy.

It's just that fraud's what we're good at! Take the case of Christopher Maury. The West Palm man who somehow managed to impersonate clients of a brokerage firm in St. Louis, then to have that firm liquidate the client's stock holdings so they could be placed in a bank account he controlled here. Genius! Right up to the moment he got caught. Maury entered a guilty plea in his case last week.

But before he got busted, Maury likely spent a large share of his winnings in our local economy. You can say the same for Bernie Madoff and a host of other fraudsters who called South Florida home and whose dirty money kept local merchants flush with cash they needed to feed their families, pay their taxes, and flip the occasional condo. Which means it's high time we demand that our state representatives at the federal level give us a voice: Of the two leading candidates for U.S. Senate, will Charlie Crist or Kendrick Meek best protect Florida's right to make an honest living being dishonest with fellow Americans?

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