US INSURANCE FRAUDSTER SHOLAM WEISS ARRESTED IN AUSTRIA

Convicted US insurance fraudster Sholam Weiss, who has been on the run for the past year, has been arrested in Austria. Mr Weiss jumped bail last year near the end of a trial in Florida where he was convicted with four others of defrauding locally based National Heritage Life Insurance and causing its collapse in 1994. Mr Weiss and his co-conspirators were accused of stealing $450m from the company through a series of fraudulent stock and securities transactions in a scheme which, according to prosecutors, led to the largest-ever fraud-related insurance failure in the US. Mr Weiss was sentenced in absentia to 845 years in prison. “He’ll spend the rest of his life in a cage”, former FBI agent Joe Judge told the Associated Press . “I’m pleased and satisfied it’s over”. Mr Judge had worked on the case for six years.