# Stanford scam



## basilio (19 February 2009)

$50 billion in assets under management : Do we have another contender for the Madoff award?

Had a read of The Eagle which is Stanfords creative puff piece. Looks impressive, says all the right things with just the right tone. Even includes a story on how the very wealthy should educate their heirs to handle money. (We are talking serious wealth here..) I can see how and where they scored their $50 billion.
Salient points

1) This is a privately owned company with one shareholder Alan Stamford
2) Quote from fine print in The Eagle.


> The Stanford Financial group is not a legal entity. It is an international network of independent affiliated companies located throughout North America, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbeans.



There will be some very poor billionaires today.


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## basilio (19 February 2009)

$50 billion  of assets in management? Perhaps that's just part of the smokes and mirrors of a giant con.

Obviously this story is breaking day by day but there are a number of similarities to the Madoff scam

1) The auditing company was another dusty two bit operation in the  Caribbean 
2) Again there has been a individual who worked out the promises being made simply couldn't be real so the operation must be a scam. His reports have been publised in South American papers
3) As usual the SEC has been investigating Stanford for 2 years without actually working out the bleeding obvious... until the private reports started to emerge.



> Former brokers say they never could understand where the company got all the money to pay for the sponsorships and fancy office digs.
> 
> In fact, the most recent audit of Stanford’s brokerage arm, a copy of which is filed with the SEC and obtained by BusinessWeek, shows that the division had incurred losses for many years. At the end of 2007, the brokerage arm had an accumulated a deficit of $77 million. The same audit also shows that the SEC had been requesting documents from the firm as far back as 2006.
> 
> Other regulatory filings show that Stanford’s brokerage arm managed about $4 billion in client money. Even adding in the $8.5 billion managed by its offshore bank, that’s far less than the $50 billion Allen Stanford claims his firm manages and advises.




http://www.businessweek.com/investing/wall_street_news_blog/archives/2009/02/sec_moves_again.html


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## basilio (19 February 2009)

FBI think Madoff and Stanford are just the beginning of the scam trail. 

And guess what Stanford was scammed by Madoof ! 



> The FBI is convinced that the two huge frauds are just the tip of the iceberg. John Pistole, the Deputy Director of the FBI, told politicians on Capitol Hill last week that the agency was investigating 530 corporate fraud cases, including 38 directly related to the current economic crisis.
> 
> The SEC believes that Mr Stanford duped investors, who bought bonds from Stanford International Bank in Antigua and lied about the performance of their savings. The regulator also accuses Mr Stanford of lying to investors about their exposure to Mr Madoff. He lost about $400,000 to the New York financier’s Ponzi scheme.




http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/cricket/article5762670.ece


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## juw177 (19 February 2009)

Stanford Gave Hypothetical Data as Actual Performance
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ahfIj9CERDj4&refer=home

Accused Financier Under Federal Drug Investigation
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=6907429&page=1


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## GumbyLearner (19 February 2009)

Bank runs begin as impact of Scamford Financial Mafia spreads

:knightrid :nosympath:jerry

*Latin Americans fret as Stanford crisis spreads*

CARACAS, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Well-off Mexican pensioners joined middle-class Venezuelans in a frantic quest on Wednesday to track down their savings as the fraud scandal enveloping U.S. broker Stanford Group Co spread to Latin America.

Crowds flocked to Stanford offices in Caracas and Mexico City and telephone lines buzzed as harried Stanford staff fielded calls round-the-clock about frozen accounts. Regulatory authorities moved on the bank's assets in Ecuador and Panama and its Colombian brokerage unit halted stock trading.

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN1845098120090218


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## basilio (19 February 2009)

How you manage to operate a $50 billion scam in a third world country and effectively become as big as its entire economy?

For a start you have the former Central Bank Governor on your Board.


> [
> *Sir Courtney on board with Stanford*
> Published on: 3/5/08.
> 
> ...




The bank runs are a scare. Regardless of which banks are involved when one falls over the others arn't far behind. Everything changes then.


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## GumbyLearner (19 February 2009)

Sir Scamford's sphere of influence

*Hunt for Allen Stanford and his billions*
Feb 19

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5762670.ece

The scale of his influence was becoming clear. *He donated funds to President Obama’s election campaign and sponsored the annual charity polo day at Sandhurst, hosted by the Prince of Wales.* Michael Owen, the Newcastle United and England striker, is a global ambassador for the Stanford Financial Group. Tennis, golf and basketball tournaments and teams have benefited from his millions, not to mention cricket in England and the Caribbean.

*Depositors turned away from Stanford banks*

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090218/ap_on_bi_ge/cb_antigua_stanford_7

Stanford also has been a major political player in the U.S., where some congressmen quickly announced they would donate his campaign contributions to charity.

*The Stanford Financial Group, through its political action committee and employees, has contributed $2.4 million to political candidates, parties and committees in the U.S. since 1989, with nearly two-thirds going to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a group that tracks campaign spending.*

Most of that cash flowed during the 2002 election cycle, *when Congress was debating a financial services antifraud bill that would have linked the databases of state and federal banking, securities and insurance regulators. The bill ultimately died in the Senate, where the biggest recipients have been Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. ($45,900); Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. ($28,150); Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn. ($27,500); and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas ($19,700). Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas also received $41,375.*

Stanford and his wife Susan also *donated $931,100 of their own money, with 78 percent going to Democrats, including $4,600 to President Barack Obama's presidential campaign last May 31. Records show $2,300 of that was returned on the same day.*

If anyone wants to make a complaint please email this website:-
http://www.transparency.org/

It sure looks like they may need some volunteers to point them in the right direction. ROFLMAO


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## GumbyLearner (19 February 2009)

Here's the muckety map for Scamford's links

http://www.muckety.com/Query?name=A...=145074&SearchResult=5036385&graph=MucketyMap


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## GumbyLearner (19 February 2009)

*Chinese rat rivals Allen Stanford *

http://www.examiner.com/x-2888-World-News-Examiner~y2009m2d18-Chinese-rat-rivals-Allen-Stanford

Billionaire financier Allen Stanford - who may have stolen $50 billion from investors - apparently is not the biggest rat out there, though, unlike like his competition, he is still on loose. 

irate::bs:


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## GumbyLearner (19 February 2009)

Scamford closely linked with Royal Bank of Canada
Customers panic! 

*How a high-flying Texas businessman came to have Canadian connections*

http://business.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090218.wrstanford19/BNStory/Business/home

NEW YORK, TORONTO, MONTREAL ”” A week before Christmas *in 2002, Texas billionaire Allen Stanford arrived in Montreal* to burnish his credentials as a high-living, high-flying investment executive. He had ordered a Global Express 9100 jet from Bombardier – the 100th that had been sold – and to mark the occasion, *executives presented the aircraft to him during a private ceremony at the company's completion centre.*

*He returned to the city two years later, only this time it was to open a swank satellite office for his Antigua-based financial outfit, Stanford International Bank.* The five-person operation, *headed by former Royal Bank of Canada manager Alain Lapointe, promoted the attractive returns offered by Stanford's offshore investments.*


*Yesterday, customers of the Montreal office were among thousands around the globe who descended on the bank's far-flung branches in a panic, demanding answers – not to mention a return of their money – amid allegations that Mr. Stanford masterminded an $8-billion (U.S.) investment fraud.*

At Stanford International's representative office on the 30th floor of the Montreal Trust tower, a distraught customer admitted that, before the scandal broke, he wondered whether the terrific returns were too good to be true.


Allen Stanford is facing allegations he has committed an $8-billion (U.S.) fraud. 

But he said he was swayed by explanations that *the bank benefited from significant tax breaks *as an offshore operation.

“Now, with what I've been hearing, *I'm wondering if the investments [Stanford] made are legitimate,” said the client,* who did not want to be identified. *After trying to contact Mr. Lapointe on his cellphone, the customer dropped off some papers and left.*

A woman in Stanford's offices confirmed *Mr. Lapointe was in, but said he wasn't available to comment on the controversy.*

Mr. Lapointe, who also worked at Laurentian Bank and Computershare before joining Stanford, received his MBA from HEC-Montreal, the University of Montreal's business school.

In 2004-2005,* Mr. Lapointe, a director of the HEC alumni association, helped its class of '85 graduates raise $50,000 for the school, and last September, he helped organize a golf fundraiser.* There is speculation in local circles that some of HEC's close-knit alumni populated the Stanford client list, but school spokeswoman Kathleen Grant declined to comment, other than to say *“he is someone who is very devoted to the school.â*


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## GumbyLearner (19 February 2009)

Scamford in 'no way' related to Stanford University. 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/18/BUBH15VQR9.DTL

*Not guilty by association *

Stanford University wants us to know it is not related in any way to Sir Robert Allen Stanford, the Texas billionaire accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of bilking tens of thousands of investors out of an estimated $8 billion. Nor is it connected in any way with the Stanford Financial Group, one of the entities through which Sir Robert allegedly ran the fraud. In fact, the university filed a lawsuit last year against the Stanford Financial Group for "trademark infringement and related claims ... to prevent the type of confusion and reputational injury to Stanford University that is caused by (the) SEC charges." Presumably that includes the academic-looking logo on the financial group's Web site, and headlines that read "Stanford Charged With Fraud."


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## basilio (23 February 2009)

As the Stanford scam unwinds  it looks* exactly* like a long episode of Hustle. The characters, the phony stories, the slick presentations, the long con game.

Excellent story from The Guardian is pulling together the pieces  of this sting. Certainly worth a read to remind ourselves that "if it looks too good to be true it probably isn't"  the next time we find ourselves impressed with a "tall, wealthy, texan "




> *The famous faces that fooled Stanford clients*
> *
> Sir Allen Stanford's empire came crashing down last week in an $8bn fraud inquiry that is now set to extend to Britain. Jamie Doward and Rajeev Syal reveal how the Texan tycoon manipulated his links with royals, sports stars and politicians to give his credentials a veneer of credibility - and why it took so long for the alarm to sound*
> 
> ...




Great pitch, great con..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/22/stanford-financial-group-banking


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