Date Posted:00:22:53 07/17/02 Wed Author:Drummond Subject: CEOs on the run
> REMAINING U.S. CEOs MAKE A BREAK FOR IT--
>
> Band of Roving Chief Executives Spotted Miles from
> Mexican Border
>
> San Antonio, Texas(Rooters) Unwilling to wait for their
> eventual indictments, the 10,000 remaining CEOs of
> public U.S. companies made a break for it yesterday,
> heading for the Mexican border, plundering towns and
> villages along the way, and writing the entire rampage
> off as a marketing expense.
>
> "They came into my home, made me pay for my own TV, then
> double-booked the revenues," said Rachel Sanchez of Las
> Cruces, just north of El Paso. "Right in front of my
> daughters."
>
> Calling themselves the CEOnistas, the chief executives
> were first spotted last night along the Rio Grande River
> near Quemado, where they bought each of the town's 320
> residents by borrowing against pension fund gains.
>
> By late this morning, the CEOnistas had arbitrarily
> inflated Quemado's population to 960, and declared a 200
> percent profit for the fiscal second quarter.
>
> This morning, the outlaws bought the city of Waco,
> transferred its underperforming areas to a private
> partnership, and sent a bill to California for $4.5
> billion.
>
> Law enforcement officials and disgruntled shareholders
> riding posse were noticeably frustrated. "First of all,
> they're very hard to find because they always stand
> behind their numbers, and the numbers keep shifting,"
> said posse spokesman Dean Levitt. "And every time we yell
> 'Stop in the name of the shareholders!', they refer us to
> investor relations. I've been on the phone all damn
> morning."
>
> "YOU'LL NEVER AUDIT ME ALIVE!"
> The pursuers said they have had some success, however, by
> preying on a common executive weakness. "Last night we
> caught about 24 of them by disguising one of our female
> officers as a CNBC anchor," said U.S. Border Patrol
> spokesperson Janet Lewis. "It was like moths to a flame."
>
> Also, teams of agents have been using high-powered
> listening devices to scan the plains for telltale sounds
> of the CEOnistas. "Most of the time we just hear leaves
> rustling or cattle flicking their tails," said Lewis,
> "but occasionally we'll pick up someone saying, 'I was
> totally out of the loop on that.'"
>
> Among former and current CEOs apprehended with this
> method were Computer Associates' Sanjay Kumar, Adelphia's
> John Rigas, Enron's Ken Lay, Joseph Nacchio of Qwest,
> Joseph Berardino of Arthur Andersen, and every Global
> Crossing CEO since 1997. ImClone Systems' Sam Waksal and
> Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco were not allowed to join the
> CEOnistas as they have already been indicted.
>
> So far, about 50 chief executives have been captured,
> including Martha Stewart, who was detained south of El
> Paso where she had cut through a barbed-wire fence at the
> Zaragosa border crossing off Highway 375.
> "She would have gotten away, but she was stopping
> motorists to ask for marzipan and food coloring so she
> could make edible snowman place settings, using the cut
> pieces of wire for the arms," said Border Patrol officer
> Jennette Cushing. "We put her in cell No. 7, because the
> morning sun really adds texture to the stucco walls."
>
> While some stragglers are believed to have successfully
> crossed into Mexico, Cushing said the bulk of the
> CEOnistas have holed themselves up at the Alamo.
>
> "No, not the fort, the car rental place at the airport,"
> she said. "They're rotating all the tires on the minivans
> and accounting for each change as a sale."
