Crooked Bankster Sir Allen Stanford Indicted In $7 Billion Ponzi Scheme

"Sir" Allen Stanford of Texas, not a Mormon, just another crooked bankster

In 2008 Sir Stanford started his own PAC, The Stanford Financial Group Political Action Committee. Previously he'd been most generous to some of Congress' biggest whores-- particularly indicted criminals Tom DeLay (R-TX) and Bob Ney (R-OH). But the PAC spread the tainted cash around in a very bipartisan way. Of the $120,000 it distributed directly to members of Congress, exactly 50% went to Republicans and exactly 50% went to Democrats. The bigger the congressmember's reputation for sleaziness and corruption, the bigger the chance that they would get a nice large check from the Stanford Financial Group PAC. The half dozen most greased:

John Boehner (R-OH)- $5,000
Charlie Rangel (D-NY)- $5,000
Pete Sessions (R-TX)- $5,000
Roger Wicker (R-MS)- $5,000
Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)- $5,000
Rahm Emanuel (D-IL)- $3,000

That, of course, doesn't count how much it cost Sir Stanford to buy his knighthood from Antigua-- nor the protection that criminal enterprise/banana republic afforded him and his schemes. After he was charged in the criminal conspiracy by the U.S. government, Antigua suspended Leroy King, head of the Antigua and Barbuda Financial Services Regulatory Commission. King had been paid at least $100,000 by Stanford to permit him to run his ponzi scheme while conducting sham audits of Stanford International Bank Ltd on behalf of the notoriously crooked off shore banking haven.

In June 2005, the Securities and Exchange Commission made a secret plea to Antigua’s top banking regulator, Leroy King: help investigate whether Stanford International Bank, based in the Caribbean money haven, was engaged in a huge fraud of its investors.

But unknown to the agency, someone else had gotten to him first. R. Allen Stanford, the Texas billionaire whose bank made him a powerful figure in Antigua, had already started making a series of payments to Mr. King that would eventually top $100,000 in exchange for his help in warding off the S.E.C.

U.S. prosecutors pointed out that Stanford's business practices put the “integrity of the markets” at risk. Stanford is being held without bail since he is considered a 100% flight risk, already having been apprehended trying to escape on a chartered jet. He's been in jail in Virginia and said he was anxious to get back to Texas, a state where they know how to take care of well-connected rich white people.

“To go to Texas? Yes ma’am,” Stanford responded. Earlier, he repeatedly shook his head as the charges against him were read. He was led away in leg irons by two U.S. marshals.

Over a billion dollars of investors' money seems to have vanished without a trace although one investigator said there were "billions of dollars more in missing funds because much was wasted on a variety of risky investments, as well as cricket sponsorships, jets, yachts and other accouterments of Mr. Stanford’s lifestyle." Stanford and everyone involved, of course, claims to be innocent. We should add that before Leroy King, an American citizen, became Antigua's chief regulatory officer, he was a vice president at a less blatantly corrupt operation, Bank of America.