In news that can’t be considered surprising, the US Department of Justice on Friday (19 June) unsealed a massive criminal indictment charging the billionaire financier Allen Stanford and five other people with orchestrating a $7bn (£4.2bn) Ponzi scheme through Stanford’s banking empire in Antigua and in the US.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a civil case against Stanford and several Stanford International Bank executives in February, so Friday’s indictment had long been expected. The new indictment, centres on the now-familiar scheme involving the bank’s certificates of deposit, which offered investors huge, double-digit rates of return. The indictment charges Stanford and three other company officials – including Laura Pendergest-Holt, the bank’s chief investment officer – with falsely pumping up the value of the bank’s investments in presentations and meetings with investors. In reality, the indictment says, about 80% of the bank’s investments were in illiquid assets, including more than $1bn (£600m) in loans to Stanford, according to press reports.
