Category Archives: fraud

There’s a tantalizing tidbit at the end of the NYT’s Stanford report today: The current S.E.C. charges stem from an inquiry opened in October 2006 after a routine exam of Stanford Group, according to Stephen J. Korotash, an associate regional … Continue reading →

The SEC case against Allen Stanford comprises little more, right now, than a civil complaint; more private cases are now being filed. What does this mean for Stanford himself? Is he subject to arrest anywhere in the world? I asked … Continue reading →

Patrick Kidd says that Allen Stanford is "another victim of the biggest economic crisis since the 1930s"; Joe Wiesenthal says that nobody is accusing Stanford of being another Ponzi scheme. So before this meme takes root, let’s be clear about … Continue reading →

Given the amount of time that the SEC and the media have been sniffing around his operation, today’s fraud charges can’t have come as much surprise to Allen Stanford. And given that he owns banks in many different jurisdictions (the … Continue reading →

According to the SEC press release, it has acted with lightning speed: Said Linda Chatman Thomsen, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement: "We are moving quickly and decisively in this enforcement action to stop this fraudulent conduct and preserve … Continue reading →

The SEC complaint against Stanford is quite astonishing. Here are some of the highlights, which include a slew of outright lies and even an investment with Bernie Madoff. Impossibly, Stanford’s portfolio managed to rack up identical 15.71% back-to-back returns in … Continue reading →

The SEC has frozen all the assets of Allen Stanford and his companies, as well as those of his CFO and CIO. I think you can guess why: The SEC’s complaint, filed in federal court in Dallas, alleges that the … Continue reading →

The Stanford story is picking up a lot of steam, to the point at which it’s becoming hard to keep up. A lot more information is coming to light about Stanford’s investments, many of which seem to be in highly-illiquid … Continue reading →

It took Alex Dalmady 30 minutes to work out that there was something obviously wrong at Stanford International Bank. The SEC, on the other hand, works a bit more slowly: BusinessWeek previously reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission, the … Continue reading →

Memo to Allen Stanford: Be careful what you write in memos, because they leak. Bloomberg’s Alison Fitzgerald has her hands on his latest missive to employees: R. Allen Stanford, the billionaire chairman of Houston-based investment firm Stanford Group Co., said … Continue reading →

There’s something very compelling about Tyler’s interactive maps of Madoff victims’ addresses. One spot in particular jumped out at me: what on earth was a Madoff victim doing on Delancey Street? It turns out, tragically, that Ratner’s deli — the … Continue reading →

I’ve spent most of the morning reading Harry Markopolos’s testimony to the House committee on financial services: if you have some time, I’d highly recommend you do likewise. Markopolos isn’t shy about hyperbole: he talks at one point of his … Continue reading →

A longtime reader of this blog got himself Bernie Madoff’s return series from a Fairfield Sentry marketing document and plugged it into an Excel spreadsheet; he then graphed the one-year rolling volatility of Madoff’s returns. The results are interesting: click … Continue reading →

A large number of fund-of-funds firms and other advisory shops are crowing these days about how they looked at Madoff, saw red flags, and didn’t invest. But the fact is that every fund manager who is looked at by fund-of-funds … Continue reading →

From Alexandra Penney, Madoff victim: I suddenly had a lot of money. I was in my late forties, and I felt that I was just too old to have it in a plain old bank account. (HT: Wiesenthal)

Cityfile NY reports: Although the millions in Bernie’s foundation were managed by his own investment firm, neither son entrusted their charitable trusts to their dad. Mark Madoff’s $5 million account was parked at Lehman Brothers. Andrew’s $2 million trust was … Continue reading →