Allan Stanford gone missing

[Sickko]

Breaking news on RJR news says that Allan Stanford has disappeared and no one can find him...I think he is probably in Argentina right now seeking a flight to Bern, Switzerland

[Peter R]

Willi, look out for Allan!

[Bricktop]

Poor Shiv and Sarwan:

While the bulk of the team have cashed their cheques, five of them, including Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan, were believed to have been persuaded to reinvest their winnings with one of Stanford's companies.

[Sickko]

It seems that everyone who got a cheque from Standford was 'encouraged' to re-invest it in one of his companies.

Some how I just never trusted this bredda, I had heard the TV people were mandated to show him every time he took a walk during the 20/20 games- his ego knew no bounds but now it appears he was also crooked as there is news that he was mixed up with the Mexican drug cartels as one of his planes were seized in mexico last year.

[Islandman]

Lawd god! I hope is not all of it.

[Willi]

Bern is not a big banking centre...Zurich, Geneva, Zug...maybe Luzern.

[Sir X]

Stanford used tiny audit firm to sign off accounts




By Simon Kennedy, MarketWatch
Last update: 8:23 a.m. EST Feb. 19, 2009
Comments: 18




LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Allen Stanford, the Texan billionaire who hasn't been seen since he was accused of an $8 billion fraud earlier this week, used a tiny accounting firm with offices above a hair salon in North London to audit his financial empire, according to media reports.


The firm -- CAS Hewlett & Co. -- was the auditor for Stanford International Bank and was run by Charlesworth Hewlett until his death last month. Of three addresses registered in London, residents at two had no knowledge of Hewlett and the third was a one-room office previously used by the accountant, the Financial Times reported.
The firm's Antiguan office, meanwhile, is run out of just two rooms, with an old typewriter and an eight-year-old telephone directory on the reception desk, the FT had separately reported.
Stanford and three of his companies, including SIB, have been charged with fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The regulator said SIB sold around $8 billion of certificates of deposit to investors by promising "improbable and unsubstantiated" high interest rates. See archived story.
Stanford's use of a virtually unknown auditor is reminiscent of Bernard Madoff, who used a three-man accounting firm while allegedly pulling off the world's biggest-ever fraud.
Also similar to the alleged Madoff fraud, employees of Stanford were kept in the dark or actively discouraged from asking questions about how the group's investments operated.
Two former advisers at Stanford's Houston offices, Mark Tidwell and Charles Rawl, sued the group last year after they were allegedly forced to resign after raising concerns about how the business was run.
Stanford has been missing since the SEC announced its charges earlier in the week. He reportedly failed in an attempt to charter a private plan in Houston after the plane-leasing company refused his credit card.
His father, James Stanford, who was on the board but hasn't been charged, told the Houston Chronicle that he didn't know the details of how the investments were structured or where deposits had been invested.
"I cannot believe, I will not believe what is being alleged actually happened," James Stanford reportedly said, adding he didn't know where his son was.
Simon Kennedy is the City correspondent for MarketWatch in London.

[Sir X]

Sent

I wonder if this was the "other mini Madoff" Marcopolo was talking about at the hearings?

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NYInvestingMeetup 42 minutes ago





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Obviously the regulators pay no attention to who is auditing whom. This was one of the many red flags in this operation. The too good to be true returns were one of the others. Since the government is doing nothing to protect investors (you should ask yourself why they can't find obvious scams that a mentally challenged 5-year old could uncover), investors need to protect themselves. There are a number of ways this can be done.
-Organizer, New York Investing meetup (http://investing.meetup.com/21)

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CommonCentsTwo 26 minutes ago
+3 Votes (3 Up / 0 Dn)




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Justice You Say ...

(Reuters) - Texas billionaire Allen Stanford, three of his companies and two other executives, were charged with "massive" fraud on Tuesday as federal agents swooped on his U.S. headquarters to no avail being he lives off shore! Wonder why! Huh

They have not even been able to put Bernard Madoff in jail and he does live in this country ! Huh Leona Hellsley (the queen of mean) once said " the law (justice) was mean for the little people" And it looks truer today than ever it seems doesn't it!

Sir Allen Stanford

Is a fifth-generation Texan and chairman of the Stanford Financial Group of companies that claims clients from 140 countries and assets under management and advisement of $50 billion (35 billion pound).

His grandfather, Lodis, founded the first Stanford Company during the Great Depression in 1932 in the small central-Texas town of Mexia.

Allen Stanford, 58, made his first fortune in real estate in the early 1980s and expanded the family firm into a global wealth management company.

He lives in St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands, and holds dual U.S. and Antigua and Barbuda citizenship. He was the first American to be knighted by Antigua and Barbuda in 2006 to become Sir Allen Stanford.












Sent

Did you see the video with Pelosi hugging Stanford and Bill Clinton praising him? What a hoot. Turns out the Democrats had their convention bankrolled by this guy who not only was using OPM from his Ponzi scheme but also it appears he got cash from money laundering for a Mexican Drug Cartel.

I wondered where the Dems got all that cash for the plastic pillars for Obama's temple in Denver. Too funny.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=6907429&page=1



lisa30 3 minutes ago





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What the hell is wrong with that ..these are the people I want to be associated with..lol Wonder when is the next sanford 20/20 match..


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Of course the Big Four audited the US Banks, Merrill, JP; etc so it is not the size of the firm that makes any difference. It is time to change the way these firms are reimbursed for their services. If they are performing a quasi regulatory function then, in order to maintain complete Independence, the firms should be reimbursed by a third party funded by assessments against the firms and the firms should be rotated periodically to prevent the buddy buddy relationship pacts from forming.
BTW I remember one partner of a Big Four firm telling me distinctly; "we do not look for fraud".






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There are probably dozens more of these guys out there. The SEC is incompetent but nothing has happened to the people who are running it.





RescueRangers 14 minutes ago





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The guy looks like Hitler with that mustache.






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When the tide goes out, you find out who's not wearing a swimming suit.

I suspect we'll be seeing a lot of naked frauds this year.




RescueRangers 11 minutes ago
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Just think, if we never had this financial meltdown these asssholes would still be running their chit.

The moral of the story is with all bad there comes some good if ya look hard enough.









Sent

Finally I see a post here that is worth reading. I love it when someone can find something good in anything. Thank you RescueRanger.

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"He reportedly failed in an attempt to charter a private plan in Houston after the plane-leasing company refused his credit card."

private plan?? Sloppy reporting...



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I wonder if they will have any better luck finding Stanford than they have had with Osama . If he has paid his dues to all the big shots in Washington and Wall Street,does he get to stay in one of his mansions till he dies - A.K. Madoff. They should put them both in a prison with a Sir Bubba as a bunk mate. I wonder how these guys would fare under China's court system.

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wundy 4 minutes ago











Sent

Anything that earns more than a treasury has some kind of risk. That is the first thing I ever learned in Finance 101. It amazes me the risk people take to get a little extra return.







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proof that regulators, auditors and all the b******* hoops you go through, mean absolutely nothing.

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coffeemug1 4 minutes ago





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Is he a Christian? We made such a big deal of Madoff being Jewish, that I now expect - or rather demand - that we identify the religion of all such frauders. So, tell me, is this guy Christian and if so, clearly identify it in EVERY article written about him.

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dusanlasak 3 minutes ago





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Looks to me Stanfords are more clever than Maddoff clan ... . It really is funny and I say Stanford is very artfull and he makes fun from all his "investors" ... :-)))









Sent

The shock is not so much the fraud but that the SEC discovered it.

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[Islandman]

Well, so far it not affecting them batting.....

[Gamma]

dem bex!