Here's a word to the wise: if you're going to ask a bank for a $74 million loan, be sure to have some outside help. And definitely don't give them referential phone numbers that are registered under your name.

That's precisely what prosecutors claim Hassan Nemazee has done. In 2006, Nemazee, who was one of Hillary Clinton's finance chairmen and later helped raise over $500,000 for then-candidate Barack Obama, allegedly tried to get a $74 million loan from Citibank.

And, as a way of proving his worth, the business man offered a host of accounts and phone numbers of financial institutions as reference. But, alas, the accounts were either closed or had simply never existed. And those financial institutions? They were really just phone numbers that he himself controlled.

The FBI went after him on Sunday and, in a move that makes him look way guilty, returned the funds to Citibank on Monday. Regardless of his financial offering, Nemazee, whose father was a shipping magnate, remains in jail on a $25 million bond and, once released, will have to wear an electronic monitor until things can be sorted.

So, how long until Clinton and Obama distance themselves from this one? Actually, it's more likely they simply won't even address it. That's what we would do.

Image via the_kid_cl's flickr.