Old and bearded It is a member country of the Commonwealth of Nations, with King Charles III as head of state, represented locally by a governor general.
The The island’s economy has traditionally been based on tourism, with significant hotel development and a main airport that serves as a connection point for several airlines such as Virgin Atlantic and British Airways.
This focus on tourism has facilitated a notable flow of investments towards various projects, attracting prominent investors such as Allen Stanford.
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The FBI detected irregularities in his financial movements and he ended up in prison for fraud and obstruction of justice.
How Allen Stanford, the fraudster banker, made his fortune
He was born in 1950 in Mexia, a small town in Texaswhere his father served as mayor and councilman. Graduated with honors in Finance at Baylor University.
In the eighties, He partnered with his father to run an insurance company founded by his grandfather. However, they shifted their focus to real estate speculation after the oil crisis, which severely affected the housing market in Texas, especially in Houston. His strategy was Acquiring clearance properties and then selling them years laterobtaining considerable profits.
During the nineties, He established his residence in Antigua and created the Stanford International Bank. This move catapulted him as one of the wealthiest people in the world, accumulating a fortune that exceeded $2 billion. In Antigua, he also became a prominent and respected figure, financing sports teams, owning media outlets and financially supporting local political parties, with practices that bordered on, or even surpassed, the limits of corruption.
The fall of Allen Stanford: sentenced to life in prison
In February 2009, the SEC, the FBI, the Florida Office of Financial Regulation and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority They launched an investigation into its operations. According to its financial statements, its assets appeared to be in liquid investments, but in reality more than 90% of the money was in unsupervised illiquid assetsunder the exclusive control of Stanford and its chief financial officer, James Davies.
The decline began in mid-February of that year, when federal agents raided Stanford Financial’s offices in Houston. They were accused of running a massive fraud scheme. All of the group’s assets were frozen and Stanford had to surrender his passport.
Stanford tried to flee the country on a private flight, but was located by the FBI two days later at his girlfriend’s house. In June He was arrested and later charged formally by the SEC of operating a massive Ponzi scheme, illegally appropriating billions of dollars and falsifying records to conceal the fraud.
He was tried and sentenced to 110 years in prison. for defrauding more than US$7 billion from more than 30,000 clients around the world through a pyramid scheme. Additionally, he faced charges of obstruction of justice and money laundering.
