Crime has not merely climbed Mount Everest, it has been launched to Mars.
Stewart Dougherty -- 321Gold.com
Apr 10, 2009 -- Fifty years ago, on March 23, 1959, Ian Fleming's novel, Goldfinger was published to great popular acclaim. In the movie released five years later, arch villain Auric Goldfinger attempts to detonate a nuclear device inside the gold depository at Fort Knox, radioactively contaminating the nation's gold reserves for decades and making them untouchable. Goldfinger's motive is to drive up the value of his personal gold holdings. He has deposited 20 million British Pounds' worth of gold in Amsterdam, Caracas, Hong Kong and Zurich, and estimates that the value of his bullion will increase by ten times after the U.S. gold supply is neutralized. So he stands to profit by his crime in the amount of 180 million British Pounds, or $504 million at the then conversion rate of $2.80 per Pound.
The book and subsequent movie were blockbuster successes. The world was gripped by Goldfinger's daring scheme, dubbed "Operation Grand Slam," and its larger-than-life mastermind and villain. People viewed Goldfinger's plan as the boldest criminal adventure of all times, at least as of that time.
In the 1964 movie, Goldfinger delivered a stirring address to several U.S. gangsters he sought to enlist as partners. He exclaimed: "Man has climbed Mount Everest, gone to the bottom of the ocean. He's fired rockets at the moon, achieved miracles in every field of human endeavor - EXCEPT CRIME!"
What a difference fifty years make. In the context of today's metastasizing epidemic of financial crime, Goldfinger's $504 million theft could only be regarded as completely insignificant. Crime has not merely climbed Mount Everest, it has been launched to Mars.
On March 19, 2009, nearly 50 years to the day after the publication of Goldfinger, Neil Barofsky, Special Inspector General of the TARP Programs (SIGTARP) made the following comments in testimony presented to the United States House Ways and Means Committee:
