Wednesday 4 April 2012

Oopps! Another banana skin for the unwary Australian politician


All around the world pollies past and present are looking investor embarrassment in the face, including U.S. presidential hopeful Mitt Romney who has  mountain of moolah earning interest over at Goldman Sachs in its many manifestations.
But none more so than Malcolm Bligh Turnbull, Australia’s Federal Opposition Shadow Minister for Communications and Broadband.
He of course was Chairman and Managing Director of Goldman Sachs Australia from 1997 to 2001 and a Partner in Goldman Sachs and Co from 1998 to 2001. In 2012 he still has money invested with Goldman Sachs private equity funds, probably including GS Capital Partners V1.
Which means he was well and truly in the frame when Goldman Sachs (through its private equity fund GS Capital Partners III) purchased a 16% share in Backpage.com in 2000.
Village Voice Media Holdings now owns Backpage and Goldman Sachs is selling its share because this website has just been outed as a forum abetting the sex-trafficking of underage girls.
Goldman Sachs has all but admitted that it knew in 2010 what the website was being used for – long before the New York Times report on 31st March this year.
This letter lists a number of U.S. sex trafficking and child prostitution court cases in which Backpage features and mention of cases involving adults or children going back to 2009-10 can be found on the Internet – including this video.

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