Allen Stanford Ponzi Scheme

[scion]

Stanford Ponzi Victims To Be Compensated
Using Imprisoned American's Liquidated Swiss Operations

By John Letzing
Updated March 10, 2014 11:10 a.m. ET
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304020104579430981439459094?KEYWORDS=Stanford+ponzi&mg=reno64-wsj

ZURICH—Victims of the Ponzi scheme run by R. Allen Stanford will receive compensation from the imprisoned American's liquidated Swiss operations, Swiss officials said Monday.

The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland said in a statement that it had fined Stanford Group (Suisse) AG in Liquidation for aggravated money laundering. The company has been fined one million Swiss francs ($1.1 million) and must pay between six million and nine million francs in compensatory claims, the office said.

Both the fine and the claims will go to the victims of the fraud, the attorney general's office said. It added that during its five-year probe, the attorney general's office lifted a freeze on related Swiss bank accounts containing more than 200 million francs in assets, which have been handed over to Switzerland's financial regulator to compensate victims once bankruptcy proceedings involving Stanford International Bank Limited, Antigua, are completed.

The attorney general's office also said it was abandoning a criminal prosecution of Mr. Stanford and two accomplices because they have already been convicted in the U.S.

Marcus Wide, a liquidator of Stanford International Bank, said in a statement the Swiss development is a positive step "in the Stanford saga," which should help get the balance of related funds still held in the country distributed to victims.

The Swiss decision comes less than two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court opened the door for further compensation of victims of Mr. Stanford's $7 billion Ponzi scheme, by ruling that victims may sue law firms and others on allegations that they aided the fraud.

Mr. Stanford was convicted in the U.S. in 2012 of defrauding investors by selling them worthless certificates of deposit in his Antigua-based bank. Proceeds from those sales were then used to pay other clients and to fund Mr. Stanford's businesses.

The Swiss investigation into Mr. Stanford opened in 2009, based on suspicions that proceeds from the fraud had entered the Alpine nation, the attorney general's office said in its statement.

Write to John Letzing at [e-mail]

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304020104579430981439459094?KEYWORDS=Stanford+ponzi&mg=reno64-wsj