Once a high-flying Texan billionaire, Allen Stanford was yesterday found guilty in a Houston court of running a 20-year, US$7B Ponzi scheme during which he bilked investors in 113 countries – including Guyana – and he faces spending the rest of his life in prison.
A day after they told the judge in the case that they were having a difficulty arriving at a verdict, jurors found Stanford – the man who sparked Twenty/20 cricket frenzy in the Caribbean – guilty on 13 of 14 counts.
Stanford – some of whose tournament proceeds were invested in a cricket facility here – showed little emotion after the verdict was delivered. Shortly after, he returned to the courtroom for hearing into a case brought by the US to forfeit US$300M found in 30 bank accounts. Some of this money could potentially go to defrauded investors but would be a few cents on the dollar. Another series of trials will see a regulator from Antigua – the place where Stanford set up much of his money pulling business and which was left in crisis after the collapse of his empire – facing a charge of bribery.
In Guyana, the Hand-in-Hand Trust was exposed to the Stanford empire to the tune of $822M and Citizens Bank to a smaller amount.
According to Reuters, yesterday’s verdict was a vindication for the