"The deal closed on June 7. By Aug. 8, the merged companies were in crisis amid reports that L.& H. had cooked its books. Reporters for The Wall Street Journal did something the Goldman Four did not: they picked up the phone and called L.& H.’s supposed customers in Asia. They found that companies in South Korea and elsewhere that L.& H. had claimed were its customers weren’t doing any business with it at all. L.& H. had pulled sales figures out of thin air. Although the Goldman Four never tried to call those customers, it emerged during litigation that other bankers at Goldman had done precisely that — about two years earlier, when Goldman itself considered investing in L.& H. in a plan known internally as Project Sermon."

Goldman Sachs and a Sale Gone Horribly Awry - NYTimes.com