Financial Forensics: The Due Diligence Files

Sergio Stieben
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Forensic dissection of capital markets collapses. Not headlines — mechanisms. How money moved. Where structures broke. T1 — Full autopsy. The collapse, the actors, the moment nobody stopped it. T2 — GP/LP room. 3 red flags in the documents. Due diligence questions. Active parallels in deals running today. For allocators, GPs, and fund professionals. Hosted by Sergio Stieben — 15 years in GP/LP relations, cross-border finance US-LatAm-Europe. Try FFL Trial, free — run a deal through the same engine, scored against 140 documented collapses: https://financialforensicslabs.com.ar

  1. 4d ago

    Sumitomo 1996: Mr. Five Percent Hid a Decade of Losses │File 170 T1

    This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional. Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place. Explore ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠⁠⁠⁠ Sumitomo Copper Scandal 1996: how one trader at one of Japan's largest trading houses hid unauthorized losses for roughly a decade, then tried to win them back by cornering 93% of the copper warrants on the London Metal Exchange, a position justified by a circular physical flow that netted to zero. This is the financial autopsy of the Sumitomo copper scandal. In 1985, Yasuo Hamanaka and his superior began speculating without authorization on LME copper forward contracts to recover an earlier loss on physical copper trading in the Philippines. The losses reached around $60 million, the superior resigned, and Hamanaka told no one. He kept a secret book of unauthorized trades, destroyed documents, lied to supervisors, and forged data and signatures. The company promoted him to head copper trader the following year. The market came to know him as Mr. Copper and Mr. Five Percent, for the share of the world's yearly copper supply he was said to control. We trace how a hidden loss turned into a corner. Hamanaka ran monthly deals with a small trading firm that bought copper warrants from a Zambian producer, sold them to Sumitomo, and watched Sumitomo sell the same copper back to the same producer, month after month. On paper, that looked like a real copper business needing a hedge. In reality, the metal went around in a circle. Behind that cover, he built roughly two million tonnes of futures and nearly half of all LME warrants by September 1995, and 93% of them by late November. Anyone who had sold copper short and could not deliver had to buy back from him at his price. The money came from more than a dozen LME brokers that had each extended roughly $150 million of credit on the strength of the Sumitomo name, and from large American banks, some of it structured as loans tied to copper. Sumitomo was not an exchange member, it traded through brokers, and the LME had no mandatory reporting of large positions. A trading firm that refused to put its letterhead on hundreds of millions of dollars of non-existent trades complained to the exchange as early as 1991, and nothing happened. American regulators noticed copper draining from New York warehouses into the LME's new Long Beach warehouse, but an investigation did not open until April 1996. In June 1996, Sumitomo announced $1.8 billion in losses, later reaching $2.6 billion. Copper fell from about $2,800 a tonne in May to about $1,800 by late June. A Tokyo court sentenced Hamanaka to eight years for forgery and fraud. He was never convicted of manipulation, though Sumitomo paid $150 million to the American commodities regulator to settle manipulation charges and later recovered $275 million from Merrill Lynch. The LME rewrote its rules on membership and large-position reporting. This episode is Part 1 (T1) of the Sumitomo Copper file, the narrative account for a general audience. Part 2 (T2) breaks down the GP/LP institutional layer: the exact mechanism, the three pieces of arithmetic sitting in public data and credit files, and the active due diligence framework for anyone allocating capital or credit against a desk whose results only the desk can explain. Financial Forensics Labs dissects the world's biggest financial collapses, fraud cases, and institutional failures — layer by layer, case by case. Keywords: Sumitomo copper scandal, Yasuo Hamanaka, Mr Copper, Mr Five Percent, Sumitomo Corporation, London Metal Exchange, LME copper, copper market corner, rogue trader case study, unauthorized trading, copper warrants, Global

  2. 4d ago

    Sumitomo 1996: A Hedge Netting to Zero │GP/LP - 3 Red Flags│File 170 T2

    This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional. Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place. Explore ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠⁠⁠⁠ Sumitomo Copper Scandal 1996: the GP/LP institutional analysis of how a concealed loss becomes a corner, why the only way to recover a loss nobody knows about is a bigger position nobody knows about, and why a position only counts as a hedge if something real sits on the other side of it. This is the deep-dive institutional layer of the Sumitomo Copper file. We break down the exact mechanism by which Yasuo Hamanaka, head of copper trading at Sumitomo Corporation, turned unauthorized losses hidden since 1985 into a position controlling 93% of the warrants on the London Metal Exchange by November 1995. The logic was fixed from the start: a loss that cannot be reported cannot be written off, so it can only be recovered, which requires a bigger position, which requires financing, which requires a story. The story was a commercial flow with a Zambian producer that gave the appearance of a large physical copper business and a justification for enormous futures positions as supposed hedges. We isolate three pieces of arithmetic that anyone could have done with public data or with their own credit files. First, the warehouse arithmetic: in a market where spot copper trades above forward prices, metal normally leaves warehouses. In New York it did, while on the LME stocks kept arriving, especially at the new Long Beach warehouse. Second, the credit arithmetic: more than a dozen LME brokers had each extended roughly $150 million to the same client on the strength of the parent's name, on the order of $2 billion, before hundreds of millions more from large American banks. Each lender saw a normal-looking line, and only the sum was alarming. Third, the circular flow: add up the physical copper in the Zambian loop and net consumption at the end of every cycle is zero, yet the paperwork justified futures positions measured in millions of tonnes. We connect the case to the LME's later nickel crisis, the same exchange with the same blind spot: Sumitomo was not a member, traded through brokers, and there was no mandatory reporting of large positions, so the firm, the brokers, and the exchange each saw a piece and none was obliged to add the pieces together. We also cover the aftermath: $1.8 billion announced in June 1996 and $2.6 billion in final losses, the eight-year sentence for forgery and fraud with no manipulation conviction, and the recoveries from Merrill Lynch, J.P. Morgan, and UBS. Plus a complete active due diligence framework for allocators, credit officers, and internal audit teams: how to net out a hedge against its verifiable underlying exposure, how to sum credit across lenders, and how to separate the person who produces a result from the person who records it. This episode is Part 2 (T2) of the Sumitomo Copper file, the GP/LP analytical layer for institutional listeners. Part 1 (T1) is the narrative account for a general audience, on the same feed. Financial Forensics Labs dissects the world's biggest financial collapses, fraud cases, and institutional failures — layer by layer, case by case. Keywords: Sumitomo copper scandal, Yasuo Hamanaka, Mr Copper, Mr Five Percent, Sumitomo Corporation, London Metal Exchange, LME copper, copper market corner, rogue trader case study, unauthorized trading, copper warrants, Global Minerals, Zambia copper, Merrill Lynch Sumitomo, CFTC manipulation settlement, 1996 trading scandal, hidden trading losses, key person risk, internal control failure, hedge ver

  3. Sep 26

    LME Nickel 2022: Clearing Blind Spot │GP/LP - 3 Red Flags│File 169 T2

    This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional. Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place. Explore ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠⁠⁠⁠ LME Nickel Short Squeeze 2022: the GP/LP institutional analysis of how central clearing removes one kind of risk between individual traders while quietly relocating a different kind of risk — the aggregate size of one underlying position — to a place almost nobody is actually watching. This is the deep-dive institutional layer of the LME Nickel file. We break down exactly how Tsingshan Holding Group's nickel short position, split deliberately across roughly ten separate clearing brokers, grew large enough that no single counterparty — including the London Metal Exchange itself — could see the true aggregate size until the morning it broke the market on March 8, 2022. We explain why a central clearinghouse eliminates bilateral counterparty risk but does nothing, by design, to catch a single client's exposure ballooning across multiple member firms, and why honoring that morning's margin calls at market prices would have required collecting close to $20 billion from 28 banks in a single day, more than ten times the exchange's previous record. We walk through three unasked questions that existed before the crisis: what tonnage separates a genuine hedge from a directional bet on a producer's own physical output; why the LME chair's request for an update on the position the evening before did not trigger an adequate response; and why LME staff, asked directly by the UK's financial regulator that same morning what was driving the price, never raised the possibility of a short squeeze at all. We also cover the aftermath in detail: the standstill agreement a bank consortium gave Tsingshan instead of forcing default, the Elliott Management and Jane Street lawsuits seeking a combined $472 million in damages, and the UK courts' rulings — from the High Court in November 2023 through the Court of Appeal in October 2024 and the Supreme Court's refusal to hear a further appeal in January 2025 — all confirming the exchange acted lawfully in cancelling trades to prevent a systemic "death spiral." Plus a complete active due diligence framework for risk managers at clearing members, trading firms, and treasury desks who treat an exchange's own systems as a full backstop against counterparty concentration risk, rather than something to verify independently — including how to recompute what a genuine hedge should be sized at for a producer's actual physical output, and how to build an explicit view, before any crisis, of what an exchange is likely to do once a single day's margin call would exceed its own default-fund capacity. This episode is Part 2 (T2) of the LME Nickel file, the GP/LP analytical layer for institutional listeners. Part 1 (T1) is the narrative account for a general audience, on the same feed. Financial Forensics Labs dissects the world's biggest financial collapses, fraud cases, and institutional failures — layer by layer, case by case. Keywords: LME nickel short squeeze, London Metal Exchange, Tsingshan Holding Group, Xiang Guangda, nickel price spike 2022, commodity exchange crisis, short squeeze case study, margin call cascade, central clearing risk, Elliott Management lawsuit, Jane Street LME, exchange trade cancellation, clearinghouse default risk, commodity market structure, producer hedge risk, counterparty concentration risk, systemic risk signal, financial forensics, market structure failure, LME Clear, Russia Ukraine commodity shock, nickel market volatility, exchange governance failure, institutional due diligence, risk management framework, Financial Forensics Labs

  4. Sep 26

    LME Nickel 2022: One Hedge, Ten Brokers, $4B Erased │File 169 T1

    This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional. Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place. Explore ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠⁠⁠⁠ LME Nickel Short Squeeze 2022: how a legitimate producer hedge grew so large, split across roughly ten different brokers, that not even the exchange meant to police the whole market could see the true size of the position — until the morning it broke, and the exchange retroactively erased nearly $4 billion in trades to keep the system from collapsing. This is the financial autopsy of the 2022 London Metal Exchange nickel short squeeze. Tsingshan Holding Group, the world's largest nickel and stainless steel producer, run by trader Xiang Guangda, built a short position of roughly 100,000 to 200,000 tonnes of nickel — far larger than its own physical production could justify as a pure hedge — spread across about ten separate banks and brokers, so that none of them could see the full picture. When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, fears over Russian nickel supply sent prices climbing, and on March 8, nickel surged more than 250% in days, briefly touching an all-time high above $100,000 a tonne — the largest short squeeze in the exchange's 145-year history. Had the LME processed margin calls at that morning's price, it would have needed to collect close to $20 billion from 28 banks and brokers in a single day, more than ten times its previous record, risking a cascade of defaults through its own clearing system. The exchange halted trading and retroactively cancelled the morning's trades, wiping out profitable positions some hedge funds had locked in only hours earlier. We trace the full week: the market's reopening on new price limits it immediately hit multiple times, the standstill agreement a consortium of banks gave Tsingshan instead of forcing a default, and the legal battle that followed — Elliott Management and Jane Street sued the LME for a combined $472 million, arguing the cancellation was unlawful. Britain's courts disagreed at every level, from the High Court in 2023 through the Court of Appeal in 2024, ruling the exchange's intervention was lawful and likely prevented a far larger "death spiral" across the metals market. Regulators separately fined the LME nearly $12 million for inadequate systems and controls, and trading volume in nickel on the exchange fell by roughly a fifth in the months that followed, never fully recovering the market's trust in it as a reliable price benchmark. This episode is Part 1 (T1) of the LME Nickel file, the narrative account for a general audience. Part 2 (T2) breaks down the GP/LP institutional layer: the exact mechanism by which central clearing hides concentration risk, three unasked questions that existed before the crisis, and the active due diligence framework for anyone relying on an exchange as a backstop against counterparty concentration. Financial Forensics Labs dissects the world's biggest financial collapses, fraud cases, and institutional failures — layer by layer, case by case. Keywords: LME nickel short squeeze, London Metal Exchange, Tsingshan Holding Group, Xiang Guangda, nickel price spike 2022, commodity exchange crisis, short squeeze case study, margin call cascade, central clearing risk, Elliott Management lawsuit, Jane Street LME, exchange trade cancellation, clearinghouse default risk, commodity market structure, producer hedge risk, counterparty concentration risk, systemic risk signal, financial forensics, market structure failure, LME Clear, Russia Ukraine commodity shock, nickel market volatility, exchange governance failure, institutional due diligence,risk management framework Financial Forensics Labs

  5. Sep 18

    Bill Hwang 2024: Nine Banks, One Hidden Position │File 168 T1

    This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional. Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place. Explore ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠⁠⁠⁠ Bill Hwang 2024: how a family office built one of the largest concentrated stock positions in Wall Street history using derivatives specifically because those derivatives triggered no public disclosure — and how spreading that identical position across nine different banks meant none of them could see the whole picture until it all collapsed in a single catastrophic week. This is the financial autopsy of Bill Hwang and Archegos Capital Management. Years after pleading guilty to wire fraud tied to insider trading in Chinese bank stocks, Hwang rebuilt his operation as a private family office and grew it from a few billion dollars into a $36 billion vehicle with roughly $160 billion in total market exposure at its peak — nearly all of it built through total return swaps rather than ordinary stock purchases. A total return swap lets an investor collect every gain and absorb every loss on a stock without ever legally owning a share, which meant Hwang's enormous, concentrated bets in a handful of media and technology names, including ViacomCBS and Discovery, never crossed the ownership thresholds that force big shareholders to disclose their positions publicly. He compounded that advantage by spreading the identical trade across eight or nine separate banks — Credit Suisse, Nomura, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, UBS, Deutsche Bank, and others — so that each one could see only its own slice of his exposure. When banks asked how large his positions were elsewhere, prosecutors say the answers he and his CFO gave were incomplete or false. In March 2021, a stock offering in one of his largest holdings triggered a price slide, and margin calls hit every bank at once. Two banks recognized the danger fastest and sold more than $10 billion of stock within a day, avoiding major losses. Two others hesitated and paid for it directly — Credit Suisse alone lost roughly $5.5 billion, its largest trading loss ever, a wound that contributed directly to its 2023 collapse into UBS. Combined bank losses topped $10 billion in about a week, while the broader market value wiped from Hwang's target companies exceeded $100 billion. In July 2024, a jury convicted Hwang on 10 of 11 criminal counts — racketeering conspiracy, securities fraud, wire fraud, and market manipulation — convicting his CFO Patrick Halligan as well. In November 2024, Hwang was sentenced to 18 years in prison. This episode is Part 1 (T1) of the Archegos / Bill Hwang file, the narrative account for a general audience. Part 2 (T2) breaks down the GP/LP institutional layer: the exact mechanism, three documented red flags that existed years before the collapse, and the active due diligence framework for anyone extending credit against a counterparty's own self-reported exposure. Financial Forensics Labs dissects the world's biggest financial collapses, fraud cases, and institutional failures — layer by layer, case by case. Keywords: Bill Hwang, Archegos Capital Management, Sung Kook Hwang, total return swap, Patrick Halligan, Credit Suisse collapse, Nomura loss, Tiger Asia insider trading, ViacomCBS Discovery, prime brokerage risk, market manipulation, securities fraud trial, wire fraud conviction, racketeering conspiracy, family office risk, counterparty concentration risk, hidden ownership derivatives, swap disclosure loophole, Wall Street fraud case, financial forensics, bank failure case study, Manhattan federal court, Alvin Hellerstein, DOJ SEC CFTC charges, margin call collapse 2021, prime broker information

  6. Sep 18

    Bill Hwang 2024: Swap Fraud & Blind Spot │GP/LP - 3 Red Flags│File 168 T2

    This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional. Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place. Explore ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠⁠⁠⁠ Bill Hwang 2024: the GP/LP institutional analysis of how a hedging instrument became a criminal fraud architecture, and why nine separate, individually reasonable credit decisions at nine different banks still added up to a catastrophic, unpriced concentration in a single family office. This is the deep-dive institutional layer of the Archegos / Bill Hwang file. We break down exactly how a total return swap — a completely ordinary financing tool that lets an investor collect a stock's gains and losses without ever legally owning it — let Hwang build enormous, concentrated positions in names like ViacomCBS and Discovery without ever crossing the ownership thresholds that trigger public disclosure. At its peak, Archegos held roughly $36 billion in net assets financed up to an estimated $160 billion in total market exposure, almost entirely in a handful of single names. We isolate the second, less obvious layer of the mechanism: Hwang spread the identical position across eight or nine banks simultaneously — including Credit Suisse, Nomura, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Wells Fargo, and Mitsubishi UFJ — so each one priced its own slice of the risk correctly while none of them could see the aggregate. We walk through three specific, documented red flags that existed years before the March 2021 collapse — Hwang's 2012 guilty plea for wire fraud tied to insider trading at his prior fund, internal risk-committee minutes at more than one bank that flagged the growing concentration months in advance and were never revisited at the next scheduled meeting, and the incomplete or false answers Hwang and CFO Patrick Halligan gave banks directly when asked about exposure elsewhere, according to trial testimony from Archegos's own former head trader and chief risk officer, both of whom later pleaded guilty and testified for the prosecution. We also cover the mechanics of the unwind itself: how Credit Suisse and Nomura, which hesitated, absorbed roughly $5.5 billion and $2.9 billion in losses respectively, while Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, which moved within hours and sold more than $10 billion of stock in a single day, avoided most of the damage — and why that asymmetry in speed, not just exposure, ultimately decided who paid and how much. Plus a complete active due diligence framework for anyone on a prime brokerage desk, a credit committee, or a margin risk team who prices counterparty exposure based on what that counterparty chooses to disclose about its own book, rather than independently verified data across the Street. This episode is Part 2 (T2) of the Archegos / Bill Hwang file, the GP/LP analytical layer for institutional listeners. Part 1 (T1) is the narrative account for a general audience, on the same feed. Financial Forensics Labs dissects the world's biggest financial collapses, fraud cases, and institutional failures — layer by layer, case by case. Keywords: Bill Hwang, Archegos Capital Management, Sung Kook Hwang, total return swap, Patrick Halligan, Credit Suisse collapse, Nomura loss, Tiger Asia insider trading, ViacomCBS Discovery, prime brokerage risk, market manipulation, securities fraud trial, wire fraud conviction, racketeering conspiracy, family office risk, counterparty concentration risk, hidden ownership derivatives, swap disclosure loophole, Wall Street fraud case, financial forensics, bank failure case study, Manhattan federal court, Alvin Hellerstein, DOJ SEC CFTC charges, margin call collapse 2021, prime broker information

  7. Sep 12

    Silvergate Bank 2023: Payment Network Concentration & Counterparty Single-Point-of-Failure │ GP/LP Analysis - 3 Red Flags │ File 167 T2

    This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional. Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place. Explore ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠⁠⁠⁠ Silvergate Bank 2023: the GP/LP institutional analysis — how a payment network's core advantage became a bank's core liability, and three red flags sitting in the company's own public filings that nobody with the authority to act on them appears to have run.This is the deep-dive institutional layer of the Silvergate Bank file. We break down the exact mechanism by which the Silvergate Exchange Network's instant, 24/7 settlement design turned a diversified-looking deposit base into a single correlated block of crypto-industry money, why a credit rating never captures concentration risk, and how a fifteen-month gap in automated BSA/AML monitoring collided with roughly nine billion dollars in suspicious FTX and Alameda Research transfers. We isolate three specific red flags calculable straight from Silvergate's own public quarterly filings — deposit concentration ratio, transaction volume versus disclosed compliance language, and the difference between a balance-sheet snapshot and a transaction-flow number — plus an active due diligence framework for allocators, treasurers, and credit professionals who concentrate a material share of banking, custody, or settlement relationships in a single counterparty.This episode is Part 2 (T2) of the Silvergate Bank file, the GP/LP analytical layer for institutional listeners. Part 1 (T1) is the narrative account for a general audience, on the same feed.Financial Forensics Labs dissects the world's biggest financial collapses, fraud cases, and institutional failures — layer by layer, case by case.Keywords: Silvergate Bank, SEN network, Silvergate Exchange Network, crypto banking collapse, FTX Alameda Research, Alan Lane, Digital Currency Group, Genesis Global Capital, crypto bank run 2023, Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, banking infrastructure risk, counterparty concentration risk, BSA AML compliance failure, SEC enforcement crypto, voluntary bank liquidation, crypto contagion 2022, deposit concentration risk, treasury risk management, due diligence framework, financial forensics, bank failure case study, crypto industry collapse, Federal Home Loan Bank, discount window borrowing, related party risk, institutional due diligence, single point of failure banking, crypto lending crisis, GP LP analysis, Financial Forensics Labs

  8. Sep 12

    Silvergate Bank 2023 : Every Major Crypto Exchange Cleared Through One Pipe. When the Bank Closed, So Did the Plumbing │ File 167 T1

    This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional. Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place. Explore ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠⁠⁠⁠ Silvergate Bank 2023: how a single California bank became the payment rail nearly every major crypto exchange used to move dollars in and out of the industry — and how the same speed that built its deposits emptied them in one quarter.This is the financial autopsy of Silvergate Bank, the company behind the Silvergate Exchange Network (SEN), a private, 24/7 instant-settlement system connecting crypto exchanges, trading desks, and institutional accounts to the U.S. dollar banking system. We trace how a mid-sized regional bank grew its deposit base more than sevenfold by becoming nearly the only banking option for an entire asset class, why roughly nine out of every ten dollars on its balance sheet came from one industry vertical, and how a compliance monitoring gap running for more than a year collided with the collapse of FTX and Alameda Research in November 2022. In one quarter, digital-asset deposits fell by roughly seventy percent. Two emergency Federal credit lines and a $718 million securities loss later, Silvergate chose voluntary liquidation rather than wait for a regulator — two weeks before Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank failed the conventional way.This episode is Part 1 (T1) of the Silvergate Bank file, the narrative account for a general audience. Part 2 (T2) breaks down the GP/LP institutional layer: the exact mechanism, three red flags sitting in public filings, and the active due diligence framework for anyone concentrating a banking or settlement relationship in a single counterparty.Financial Forensics Labs dissects the world's biggest financial collapses, fraud cases, and institutional failures — layer by layer, case by case.Keywords: Silvergate Bank, SEN network, Silvergate Exchange Network, crypto banking collapse, FTX Alameda Research, Alan Lane, Digital Currency Group, Genesis Global Capital, crypto bank run 2023, Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, banking infrastructure risk, counterparty concentration risk, BSA AML compliance failure, SEC enforcement crypto, voluntary bank liquidation, crypto contagion 2022, deposit concentration risk, treasury risk management, due diligence framework, financial forensics, bank failure case study, crypto industry collapse, Federal Home Loan Bank, discount window borrowing, related party risk, institutional due diligence, single point of failure banking, crypto lending crisis, financial autopsy, Financial Forensics Labs

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About

Forensic dissection of capital markets collapses. Not headlines — mechanisms. How money moved. Where structures broke. T1 — Full autopsy. The collapse, the actors, the moment nobody stopped it. T2 — GP/LP room. 3 red flags in the documents. Due diligence questions. Active parallels in deals running today. For allocators, GPs, and fund professionals. Hosted by Sergio Stieben — 15 years in GP/LP relations, cross-border finance US-LatAm-Europe. Try FFL Trial, free — run a deal through the same engine, scored against 140 documented collapses: https://financialforensicslabs.com.ar

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