Antigua on Lockdown Following Stanford Allegations
The tiny Caribbean online gambling domicile of Antigua and Barbuda have been hit hard these past few months by allegations that Texas billionaire Allen Stanford ran a "massive Ponzi scheme" from that island nation. Antigua’s top financial regulator has also been implicated. As a result, Antigua and its Gaming Directorate remain on media lockdown.
"They won’t talk to anybody," said a reporter for Gambling911.com who attempted to visit their offices this week while in Antigua.
The situation has given the country a black eye.
Reports surfaced in early February 2009 that the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Florida Office of Financial Regulation, and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, a major U.S. private-sector oversight body, were investigating Stanford’s company Stanford Financial Group, questioning the means by which Stanford International Bank manages consistently to make higher-than-market returns to its depositors. The FBI raided three of Stanford’s offices in Houston, Memphis, and Tupelo, Mississippi. On February 27, 2009, the SEC amended its complaint to describe the alleged fraud as a "massive Ponzi scheme. He was arrested by the FBI on June 18, 2009. Stanford ran one of the biggest banks in Antigua.
Leroy King, 63, the former head of Antigua’s financial services regulatory commission, was also charged for allegedly taking bribes from Stanford. He was subsequently fired from his post.
Antigua was one of the first nations to legalize, license and regulate online gaming. In recent years, the island nation has been at odds with the United States over the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act, whereby the U.S. prohibits most forms of online gambling. Antigua filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization.
In 2007, a WTO panel found that the U.S. had failed to comply with its 2005 ruling that required it to either shut down remote gaming within in the United States or open its market to Antigua.
Since this time, Antigua has been in negotiations with the U.S. but it is unclear how the Stanford matter will impact future talks.
Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher