MF Global's money movements leading up to its 10/31/11 bankruptcy filing continues to be a top priority of federal investigators.  Their latest findings now indicate the likelihood that MF Global began improperly moving customer money earlier than was originally thought. The firm reportedly moved money through a middleman as early as 10/27/11.  In MF Global's last days, the brokerage and commodities firm frantically wound down open positions in order to shore up its weak balance sheet and stave off bankruptcy. Next up for investigators, is whether MF Global - as part of that effort - began moving client money to the DTCC (Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation), a financial intermediary responsible for closing out some of MF Global’s transactions.  Those transfers would indicate that the firm may have misused client money even earlier, and represent a new line of inquiry in the hunt for the more than $1 billion in missing funds.  Questions that require answers:

• How much customer money was transferred to DTCC?
• Which, if any, firm officials knew that client money was being used?
• Did haphazard record keeping and the flood of transaction settlements over the firm's final days manage to cloud the source of funds - i.e., essentially turning customer and proprietary money into a one big fungible pool of funds?

In any case, the new details bolster claims that MF Global was careless with customer money, regardless of the company’s intentions.  Authorities previously found that MF Global had used roughly $200 million of client funds to replenish an overdrawn account at JPMorgan in London (on Friday, 10/28) - the last business day before the firm filed for bankruptcy. As MF Global transferred funds to the clearing corporation, regulators started to raise concerns about the customer money after a routine inquiry.  In the firm’s final week, senior officials at the CFTC asked MF Global employees to identify the whereabouts of the money.  The firm reportedly responded with a document that highlighted specific MF Global units - although one of the units, MF Securities, was not listed on the firm’s broader organizational chart.  That discrepancy raised red flags among regulators that the firm might have been misusing customer money. Three days later, on Sunday, 10/30/11, MF Global alerted federal authorities to the shortfall. For more info, go to: [Dealbook, 11/28/11].