SEC Charges Stanford Financial in $8B Fraud

Finally:

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged a prominent Texas businessman and three of his companies with an $8 billion fraud in the sale of certificates of deposit. The case appears to mark one of the largest alleged frauds by a money manager in U.S. history.
Robert Allen Stanford and his companies sold $8 billion of CDs — guaranteed fixed-income investment products — to investors by “promising improbable and unsubstantiated high interest rates,” the SEC said in a statement. The agency named in its complaint Stanford International Bank Ltd., based in Antigua, and related firms based in Houston.
The SEC said the firms falsely claimed that their deposits were safe, that more than 20 analysts monitor the investments, and that yearly audits were being conducted.
In addition, one of Stanford’s companies falsely told customers that it was not exposed to the $50 billion Ponzi scheme allegedly orchestrated by Bernard L. Madoff, the SEC said.

Posted by on February 17th, 2009 at 1:44 pm


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