Reported by Charles Gasparino

When you think of a ­“banana republic,” you think of corrupt dictators someplace distant, where the people in power control the economy and jail their political opponents. Places like this still exist in the world — and believe it or not, right here in the good ’ol US of A.

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler deserves a place in our country’s Banana Republic Hall of Fame as well. Gensler has, of course, been flirting with banana republic status for some time. He is regulating crypto through enforcement. He also is looking to change decades of securities laws by forcing major companies to expand their disclosures beyond financial information to include how they’re addressing climate change and other progressive policy goals.

The SEC chief is supposed to be Wall Street’s top cop but Gensler has chosen to ignore real malfeasance such as the obvious pumping and dumping we’ve seen in some “meme stocks,” costing generational wealth for small investors who believed the pumpers.

Yet what puts Gensler firmly in the banana republic camp is his latest prosecution of something that’s pretty prosaic: The functional equivalent of a books and records violation committed by a trading firm named Virtu, according to securities lawyers I spoke to. Last week, Gensler’s SEC tried to make Virtu’s faux pas into the crime of the century.

Why? Well, maybe it begins with the fact that Virtu is run by a guy named Doug Cifu, who has been critical of Gensler’s bizarre reign as SEC chief.

Read full report: https://nypost.com/2023/09/16/gary-gensler-is-making-the-sec-into-a-banana-republic/amp/