Financier Pleads Guilty To $200m Scam

In May 1999 firefighters went to Frankel's Greenwich estate and dicovered a filing cabinet on fire and two fireplaces stuffed with burning papers. With the papers was a 'to-do' list that had the item 'launder money' as the top item. Needless to say, Frankel was no-where to be seen.

Four months later, however, he was arrested in Hamburg, Germany, in a hotel with nine fake passports and 547 diamonds. He was returned to the US last year.

US authorities have said that Frankel lived a kind of Hugh Hefner existence and had a number of women living with him in one of his mansions. He is thought to have spend money on private planes, luxury cars and expensive gifts for the women. Once a girlfriend had outlived her usefulness, she often stayed on to work in Frankel's brokerage firm.

Prosecutors set the fraud loss at around $208m. The US government has recovered around $80m, including $30m hidden in a Swiss bank account.

Frankel, 47, could get sentenced to up to 150 years in prison and fines totalling $6.5m.