Coins and dealers in the news (and it's not good): Tom Noe/Capital Coins & Mark Chrans/Malibu Co
RGL
Posts: 3,784 ✭
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) _ A man who was hired to buy and sell rare coins
for the state and then caused a state-funded coin investment to write
off $850,000 in debt had a prior felony conviction for faking a coin
transaction, a newspaper reported.
Mark Chrans was hired to help invest Ohio Bureau of Workers'
Compensation money 12 years after he served a prison sentence on fraud
and perjury charges, The Blade reported Friday.
Chrans was convicted in 1986 of faking the transaction to cover up
drug money. He was not implicated in the sale or distribution of
drugs, but admitted he laundered $33,000 for a cocaine dealer.
The state's inspector general is reviewing the workers'
compensation bureau's investment of millions of dollars in rare coin
funds to ensure that state officials' actions were proper.
Some Democrats questioned why the state invested in the funds
despite concerns raised by a bureau auditor.
The auditor questioned the deal about possible conflicts of
interest and whether the state's money was protected adequately.
Tom Noe, chairman of the Ohio Turnpike Commission and a member of
the Ohio Board of Regents, runs the Capital Coin _ the firm that the
bureau has invested in. He hired Chrans and agreed to pay him $25,000
a month to manage the coin venture.
Jeremy Jackson, a bureau spokesman, said the agency was not
involved in hiring Chrans.
Noe told The Blade that he did not know Chrans had been convicted
of a felony.
The coin fund had to write off more than $850,000 from the fund
Chrans managed, including money from an unpaid loan from Capital Coin
to Chrans and more than $335,000 in advances to him, The Blade
reported.
Noe said Chrans no longer does any business with the rare-coin
fund Noe controls. ``His deal that we had doesn't exist anymore,'' Noe
said. ``It has not existed for a couple of years.''
Chrans, who now lives in southern California and operates Malibu
Coin, declined comment when reached by the newspaper. A message
seeking comment was left at Chrans' office on Friday.
for the state and then caused a state-funded coin investment to write
off $850,000 in debt had a prior felony conviction for faking a coin
transaction, a newspaper reported.
Mark Chrans was hired to help invest Ohio Bureau of Workers'
Compensation money 12 years after he served a prison sentence on fraud
and perjury charges, The Blade reported Friday.
Chrans was convicted in 1986 of faking the transaction to cover up
drug money. He was not implicated in the sale or distribution of
drugs, but admitted he laundered $33,000 for a cocaine dealer.
The state's inspector general is reviewing the workers'
compensation bureau's investment of millions of dollars in rare coin
funds to ensure that state officials' actions were proper.
Some Democrats questioned why the state invested in the funds
despite concerns raised by a bureau auditor.
The auditor questioned the deal about possible conflicts of
interest and whether the state's money was protected adequately.
Tom Noe, chairman of the Ohio Turnpike Commission and a member of
the Ohio Board of Regents, runs the Capital Coin _ the firm that the
bureau has invested in. He hired Chrans and agreed to pay him $25,000
a month to manage the coin venture.
Jeremy Jackson, a bureau spokesman, said the agency was not
involved in hiring Chrans.
Noe told The Blade that he did not know Chrans had been convicted
of a felony.
The coin fund had to write off more than $850,000 from the fund
Chrans managed, including money from an unpaid loan from Capital Coin
to Chrans and more than $335,000 in advances to him, The Blade
reported.
Noe said Chrans no longer does any business with the rare-coin
fund Noe controls. ``His deal that we had doesn't exist anymore,'' Noe
said. ``It has not existed for a couple of years.''
Chrans, who now lives in southern California and operates Malibu
Coin, declined comment when reached by the newspaper. A message
seeking comment was left at Chrans' office on Friday.
0
Comments
<< <i>The state's inspector general is reviewing the workers'
compensation bureau's investment of millions of dollars in rare coin funds >>
What the hell is a state government doing investing worker's comp money in something as speculative as coins? Some idiot bureaucrats need to lose their jobs.
Russ, NCNE
There's no logical reason for a state Workers' Comp fund to be investing in coins. None.
New collectors, please educate yourself before spending money on coins; there are people who believe that using numismatic knowledge to rip the naïve is what this hobby is all about.
New collectors, please educate yourself before spending money on coins; there are people who believe that using numismatic knowledge to rip the naïve is what this hobby is all about.
There's no logical reason for a state Workers' Comp fund to be investing in coins. None.
I could not agree more.
Well, except for the fact that the Fund has beaten the stock market in performance since its inception.
If private accounts are good for Social Security, then what's wrong with a diversification plan for Workman's Comp? As long as coins are a measured and small part of an overall plan, then I see nothing wrong with it - provided you pick the right person and he manages it correctly.
Of course, I do disagree with the loans that were made on real estate via the coin fund.
New collectors, please educate yourself before spending money on coins; there are people who believe that using numismatic knowledge to rip the naïve is what this hobby is all about.
<< <i>Well, except for the fact that the Fund has beaten the stock market in performance since its inception. >>
A monkey could throw darts at a board and beat the stock market with coins the last few years.
Russ, NCNE
Now, that's gonna make Mr Lull feel really, really bad!
I own a business in Ohio and pay out the butt every 6 months to BWC. This really pisses me off to see how they have mismanaged funds that could have gone toward reducing premiums.
Typical bureaucracy. And who will be held accountable.... hmmm, let me guess. No one on the BWC side. I'm sure they're covered by some "I'm so stupid I can't be held accountable" rule.
The return to the Workman's Comp Fund by the Coin Fund so far exceeds any other return they have received for that time period. Provided the Coin Fund funds are liquid, it has not as yet been mismanaged by any stretch of the word.
Now, if it turns out the Real Estate loans made by the Coin Fund are bad, or valuations used in deriving returns are iffy - then you can definitely point fingers.
We are all a tight knitted community at times. As far as I know, Noe still operates a coin business.
A monkey could throw darts at a board and beat the stock market with coins the last few years.
It that monkey's dart had hit post 1820 type coins, silver dollars,
classic commems, colonials, dated 19th century gold, and a hoste of other areas, the monkey would have lost the bet. Unless you beat the stock market over the past few years you lost money since the rise in the stock market basically offset the loss in purchasing power of the US dollar. One would have seen his investment rise by about 40-50% over the last 4 years to stay ahead of the US dollar loss.
Other than some commodities and residential real estate in hotter regions, not much stayed ahead.
roadrunner
roadrunner
TDN, That's about a joke. Did you read the entire article? BWC was all but blindfolded for some time about what was happinging with the fund. I call that mismanagement.
I agree the fund made money, but it was a "blind squirrel" investment. One that rewarded BWC because of the timing, nothing else. Plain dumb luck. If they would have tried that 15 years ago, they would have lost their butt.
What a joke!!!
TDN do you see the connection between the Ohio Tpke Commission and rare coins? Isn't this like the George Walton story with cars and the "missing" 1913 Lib Nick?
roadrunner
I wasn't slamming Noe or Chrans for their work in the market, just BWC. The BWC made money because they partnered with someone who knew the ropes.
My problem is with their lack of oversight.
Add lack of accountability. Add ethics and avoidance of the appearance of conflicts of interest. This is the crux of the problem. Mr. Noe was mentored under Jim Halperin in the 1970's. Did the mentoring include practice of ethics at NERC?
Here is the core of the lack of accountability problem as stated in the Blade article:
<< <i>One of the most long-standing issues was whether the state could have an independent appraisal done of its coins - letting the state know, in essence, if Capital Coin was doing what it said it was. But Mr. Noe felt that an audit could potentially compromise the partnership by revealing to the coin market what he had purchased for the state.
In one of his memos, Mr. Elliott addressed what could happen if the state did not have an independent inventory or audit: "While we can say we trust the integrity of the manager and that their ability to continue to do business with us in the future ... as a control, this would not help the Chief Financial Officer, Chief Investment Officer, or the Administrator if we have a fraudulent act and they have to go before the press to explain what controls we had in place to prevent the act."
Ultimately, Capital Coin agreed to provide a yearly inventory of coins. However, the state, saying the inventory is a trade secret and not a public record, declined to release that inventory to The Blade.
>>
Yearly???? Yearly is enough??? Public Corporations must provide quarterly financial statements to their stockholders and to the SEC. Should such a enterprise be held to any lesser standard?
I am ashamed. I became an Ohio CPA in 1982 (along with NY and PA) after I passed the CPA exam in Columbus, Ohio in November 1977. I learned a little bit since then as I also became a Certified Fraud Examiner.
<< <i>Chrans was supposedly a super crackout artist >>
crackout artist my foot! more like a different kind of "artist".
let's just say that coin doctoring plays a HUGE roll in the business plans of certain persons alluded to in this article.
K S