R. Allen Stanford’s relationship with the chief regulator of his Antigua bank was closer than most, reports the NYTimes:
At a meeting in 2003, they became blood brothers, cutting their wrists and mixing their blood in a “brotherhood ceremony” that Mr. Stanford’s chief financial officer said promoted an elaborate scheme to hide a multibillion-dollar fraud from American and other regulators.The assertion that the two took a “blood oath” was laid out in a plea agreement signed by the officer, James M. Davis, and filed Thursday. After the pact, Leroy King, Antigua’s chief banking supervisor, called Mr. Stanford “Big Brother.” He received Super Bowl tickets, valued at thousands of dollars, for himself and his girlfriend. And he accepted regular bribe payments from a secret Swiss bank account that Mr. Davis said he was told to handle by Mr. Stanford.
…the plea agreement offered an assortment of new details, particularly about the relationship between Mr. Stanford and Mr. King, who ran Antigua’s Financial Services Regulatory Commission for much of the last decade. He has been arrested in Antigua and is awaiting extradition to the United States. Shortly after their 2003 blood-brother ceremony, which also included a second, unnamed Antiguan regulator…
Mr. Justin Simon [Attorney General of Antigua and Barbuda] said in an interview that he had become aware of the blood-brotherhood ceremony from his own sources. “It is believable,” he said. “As far as how many people are involved, we are still investigating.”
The FBI and other agencies have been conducting an ongoing investigation of Stanford since 2008 for possible involvement in money laundering for Mexico’s Gulf Cartel.
Background on Gulf Cartel:
The Gulf Cartel (Spanish: Cártel del Golfo) is a Mexican drug trafficking cartel based in Matamoros, Tamaulipas. The cartel is present in 13 states with important areas of operation in the cities of Nuevo Laredo, Miguel Alemán, Reynosa and Matamoros in the northern state of Tamaulipas; it also has important operations in the states of Nuevo León and in Michoacán.[1] The Gulf Cartel traffics cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine and heroin across the U.S.-Mexico border to major cities in the United States. The group is known for its violent methods and intimidation, and works closely with corrupt law officials and business people in Mexico as well as in the United States.
Aside from earning money from the sales of narcotics, the cartel also extorts “taxes” from local businesses in exchange of “protection”. Anyone passing narcotics or aliens through Gulf Cartel territory is subject to payment of these “taxes” to the cartel. The Gulf cartel does not limit itself solely to narcotics trafficking, as they are known to kidnap people for ransom money.”
Investigative sources told ABC…that mexican authorities had seized one of Sir Allen’s private jets as part of an inquiry into the cartel’s activities. Inside the cabin of the Gulfstream jet police found cheques connected to it.
In February 2009, the Guardian reported:
An FBI source close to the investigation would not give exact details but confirmed the agency was looking at links to international drug gangs as part of the huge investigation into Stanford’s banking activities. Reports in the US have said Mexican authorities have detained one of Stanford’s private planes as part of an investigation into possible links to the Gulf Cartel. It has been alleged cheques found inside the plane were linked to the cartel, which is one of the most violent criminal organisations in the world.
Sources in the US Drug Enforcement Administration also confirmed that while the investigations into Stanford’s affairs were “with the FBI and Securities Exchange Commission, there may well have been a trail connecting his Mexican affairs to narco-trafficking interests. So far as we understand from information partially in the public domain, this has pertained to the Gulf Cartel, and items found aboard a private light aircraft. I think we’ll find that any possible drug-related trail and SEC priorities are not all in the same frame.”
Asked whether the aircraft seizures were an isolated incident in the overall investigation, the official said: “It’s not going to be as if they would check every plane. Any connections to the narcos would have been followed for some time, and US law enforcement has been working with Mexico’s banking regulators on a vast range of investigations, including Stanford’s interests, for some time.
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