BMO fights lawsuits seeking billions over customer's Ponzi scheme

Three and a half years after buying Marshall & Ilsley Corp., BMO Financial Group is fighting four federal lawsuits — one seeking a staggering $24 billion — stemming from M&I’s dealings with a profitable, but very corrupt, customer. The customer was a company owned by Tom Petters, a Minnesota man serving a50-year federal prison sentence in Leavenworth, Kan., for masterminding a $3.7 billion Ponzi scheme. That scam was thought to be the third-largest Ponzi in U.S. history. “Petters did not act alone,” charges the $24 billion suit filed by Florida investor groups that unwittingly financed some of Petters’ scam. More in the Journal-Sentinel here.