Washington Post: Wilton-Based AIG Unit at Center of Collapse

AIG's Financial Products unit was, for a time, by far one of the company's most lucrative divisions; that is until the billions they made in harnessing complicated derivates turned into billions in taxpayer-funded federal bailout money needed to keep the ailing insurance giant afloat.

Now the Washington Post has obtained thousands of internal company emails that reveal "a company wracked by more division, doubt and turmoil than anyone on the outside realized during those tense months in 2007, a full year before the federal government undertook one of the largest corporate bailouts in U.S. history to prevent AIG's collapse."

It sometimes seems hard to believe that this particular unit, one whose "over-optimism" it could be argued was partially to blame for the country's historic recession, is based in quiet, bucolic Wilton.

But such is the case, with the division split between its 50 Danbury Road location and a London office. And now details are emerging that indicate high-level AIG executives, including employees in the Wilton office, may well have known what porous ground they were treading on in investing so heavily in subprime, mortgage-backed securities.

The Post's story comes during a time, too, when a number of employees are threatening to walk out and sue the Financial Products unit over almost $200 million in unpaid bonuses.

Read the full story: E-Mails Inside AIG Reveal Executives Struggling With Growing Crisis.