WAS?IT?TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE or a warning sent to Washington from America’s diplomatic outpost in Barbados that fell on deaf ears?
That question goes to the heart of the alleged US$7 billion dollar fraud reportedly masterminded by Allen Stanford for which he is to stand trial in a United States federal district court in Houston, Texas, in September.
Some financial analysts and legal experts who have pored over court documents pertaining to the case believe the alleged Stanford Ponzi scheme, second only to the US$50 billion one crafted by Bernard Madoff, was too far gone by the time Mary Kramer, the United States Ambassador in Barbados in 2006, sent a cable to the American State Department in Washington warning that the Texas billionaire might have been engaged in money laundering and fraud in the Eastern Caribbean.
Kramer, a Republican appointee, sent a diplomatic cable in 2006 from Barbados to “Foggy Bottom”, as the State Department is commonly called in the American capital, expressing her concerns about Stanford, his bank and their activities in and outside Antigua where the high-flying Texan had his headquarters and where he had West Indies and international cricket almost in the palm of his hand, especially the 20/20 version of the game.
In her cable, whose contents were first disclosed publicly by WikiLeaks and published by the Washington Post, the Ambassador alerted the state department that Stanford’s “companies are rumoured to engage in bribery, money laundering and political manipulation” in and outside the Eastern Caribbean.
The Ambassador’s cable and her insights came three years before the United States Securities & Exchange Commission moved against Stanford.
Stanford, who has pleaded not guilty to charges that he ran a Ponzi scheme, has vowed to defend himself in court.
It is estimated that at least 1 300 investors in Texas alone lost US$580 million when they bought the investment instruments. (TB)
