Allen Stanford: The Man Behind One of the Biggest Fraud in History | FULL DOCUMENTARY

[Music] on American TV in the middle of the u0s you used to see this commercial [Music] [Music] Stanford Financial Group was then a flourishing Financial Empire that promised investment returns that were astounding but fake from humble beginnings my family has created a in charge of this massive fraud was a Texan billionaire Alan Stanford seen here in his H offices learn I am truly honored and truly excited to lead our companies forward in the 21st century he was never a billionaire that's the point I think U because it was all a fraud so I mean what he lived off was other people's money he stole in excess of $5 billion from invest from investors either for his own personal wealth or to build his Empire in 2008 law enforcement put an end to this incredible fraud that had ruined 21,000 victims for over 25 years this man ran a Ponzi scheme the same kind of scam used by the famous Bernard madof he has a unique combination of ego narcissism and greed that people like him and made off and that type of schemer or froster typically possess we have uncovered dozens of unseen videos internal promotional films from the Stanford bank which show a life made up of Lies opulence and kitch okay the Stanford Legacy began nearly 70 years ago back in Maha Texas where my grandfather's his life was fake his history was fake his bank was fake Alan Stanford is a white colar criminal who's never hidden away but instead created a Public Image as a trustworthy Banker from the way he dressed to the gold pin to the constant appearances at Washington mixers or giving money to nonprofit organizations it was all an act freeing himself from laws governments and morals Stanford built himself an Empire fire that allowed him to operate in complete secrecy it was on a small corrupt island in the Caribbean Antigua and Barbuda where he acted like a quasi dictator he could toss money at the administration and get his own way and dictate the policies of this twin Island state of about 90,000 people in our investigation from his former offices in the Caribbean to his banks in Houston and Miami and as far as his hometown in Texas we found key witnesses to to this disgraceful story several former employees who are close to Alan Stanford but also a victim and the prosecutor who brought about his downfall they all paint a portrait of a larger than life criminal with startling Charisma it's that outsized big ego tall talking Texan that um it's almost like Jr and the TV series Dallas right those kind of figures it's the mythical Texas [ __ ] liar business person who will do anything to get ahead and Alan Stanford was that myth he was perfect this is the portrait of this Texan monster the billionaire Pirate of the Caribbean a true symbol of the failure of the American Financial system and this didn't run in is it this is off the story starts here in the town of Mexia Texas it's a small community of 6,000 people where Alan Stanford was born on the 24th of March 1950 his father James worked in insurance and was also mayor of the Town his mother Sammy was a homemaker although the Stamford family were well known in the town there was nothing to indicate that Allan the young country boy would go on to live a life of indecent opulence 50 years later Dave Henry became one of his clst collaborators for 10 years he handled the audiovisual promotion of Alan Stanford's Financial Empire fascinated by the story he's continued to research his former boss video was going to be played tonight and I normally don't get emotional [Music] are so there you have it egomaniac martinet look it's me about 30 lbs heavier psychopath that's Alan Stanford Mah is a very small town in the Bible Belt as we call it here so typically very conservative religious Baptist specifically kind of people in that environment um it looks to me like they were probably the wealthiest family in town uh I went back and saw newspaper headlines and like one of their newspaper headlines was Allan Stanford celebrates fourth birthday with 12 friends you know so Mom would buy the little article or she'd call the newspaper editor Allan grew up a lot he was soon over 6' tall his physique was exceptional he had an intense gaze a deep voice a handshake to crush your fingers and an impressive build in the late 1960s he gained a degree in business here at Baylor University very early the young man seemed obsessed with success he would tell you I'm not just going to be rich I'm going to be the richest person in the world or among the richest persons in the world so you know he was driven by this desire to be a billionaire and to make a fortune in the mid 1970s Fitness was a promising sector Americans were won over to the trend by the muscles of the young Schwarzenegger in wakeo Texas Alan Stanford attended a club in the town suburbs here in this shopping area full of confidence he bought it and renamed it Total Fitness [Music] club life was pretty comfortable for Allen Stanford up until that time I think you know Dad was paying for college dad was paying for his house Dad paid for him to buy his first business so he was kind of a spoiled upper middle class kid Alan Stanford took a gamble making the club exclusively male it was an immediate success he was the first clubs to have these new kinds of you know weightlifting machines that you know were all chains and stuff he was he was able to get those into his club that was sort of The Secret of his success Gary Finley was 19 years old at the time he was looking for his first job when he was taken on as an skilled worker at Total Fitness club the first time I met him I was actually inside vacuuming inside the fitness center and I heard this noise I went and looked out the window and he was Landing in a helicopter here's this guy walks in he's dressed Immaculate good-looking guy uh just had that had that uh confidence about himself that he could pretty much Take On The World in a few years Alan Stanford opened seven Ultra luxurious gyms All Over Texas clients snapped up annual subscriptions at $1,000 a piece he knew how to manage the sale from the time a person walked in the door till the time they leave so he was a closer he was the he was a an amazing salesman the industry at that time was was all about making money and one of the things that Allen had uh at least as far as I knew perfected at that time no one else was doing was how to create a bank draft and to draft people's checking accounts at the age of 30 Alan Robert Stanford was a married man with a family and also a daring entrepreneur but in 1982 intoxicated with his own success he overstretched himself he opened an ultr luxurious complex in the center of Houston in the middle of the oil crisis with the collapse of the American economy his Sports Empire couldn't survive the fall was so dramatic that young Gary Finley then only a manager was able to buy the club in Waco Allen was that true look of success but what I found out after I took the business over was that probably his biggest problem was he was taking in money spending money but wasn't paying bills and shortly after that maybe a year or two later he he filed he and his wife filed personal bankruptcy to this the fitness King had accumulated debts of $13.6 million a crushing failure this was the start of a dark period of his life Alan Stanford suddenly adopted a low profile was the last time I saw Alan he was flipping hamburgers so whenever he got out of the Fitness business the next thing I saw him do he started a little hamburger restaurant here in town and I mean I literally saw him behind the counter flipping hamburgers the Texan was to reappear 3 years later determined to rebuild his fortune in 1985 during a visit to a Caribbean Island he met a European expert during the conversation the man gave him an idea for making lots of money without complicating his life he was a bit of a financial Wizard and he explained uh Offshore Banking in the Caribbean to all Stanford and how easy it was to set up bank and make money and um apparently Stanford took notes right then and there on a legal pad in 1986 Allan Stanford arrived on the island of monser in the Caribbean an island where money laundering tax evasion and financial crime were almost encouraged there were 300 banks for a population of 12,000 people when he arrived Alan Stanford trusted in his remarkable powers of persuasion Larry dearia knew him well and much later became his PR manager he's a very Larger than Life person I think he's 6'4 big head very bonami you know he's very talks loud um but it wasn't an unpleasant experience to meet him if you're asking me if he if he had the gift for gab yeah I think he had the gift for gab um you don't have to know too much about the financial markets to sound intelligent the jargon is not that hard at all you read the financial press and you can understand it it's your victims who don't know the jargon with his Charisma he attracted clients in the Caribbean recruited a few employees and opened the guardian International Bank with a few dollars to head it he gathered a team with one thing in common utter Financial incompetence there was his father James Stanford a former insurance agent a lawyer a judge and even a car [Music] salesman Paul peler is the prosecutor who would bring down Alan Stanford 20 years later a board of directors that was made up of nobodies people that were either related by family or by blood or by friendship to Mr Stanford his father was chairman or Meritus of the company his father was still living I think down in Mahia Texas KN nothing about the company was just like a figurehead having already demonstrated his incompetence in accountancy he was careful this time to bring in a trustworthy accountant an old University friend James Davis he reached out to his old College buddy James Davis in order to provide some Financial credibility and to do the books and records of this Bank Mr Davis at least when he was introduced to the concept believed it was going going to be a legitimate Bank he soon learned that it wasn't Alan Stanford had decided not to burden himself with concerns over legality he set up a massive scam to steal money from gullible investors the scheme from day one until until it ended in 2009 was based on the concept that he was investing in equities and safe Investments like equities um for people across the world what in reality was happening was about literally less than 20% of what they're investing would actually be invested in these safe Investments the type of fraud was 100 years old a Ponzi scheme named after a crook who operated in Boston in the 1920s it was a simple but bold Swindle which involved selling so-called safe and very lucrative Investments to clients in reality the Investments were completely bogus Stanford didn't invest the money and pocketed nearly all of it but how did he pay people who wanted to take their money out he simply used the money of new clients to pay the old ones as long as you have enough new investors to pay off old investors then you have what could be a beautiful Ponzi scheme well away from the controls of the financial authorities in their cozy Caribbean Bank Alan Stanford and James Davis simply had to publish falsified accounts to cover up their fraud there was a real piece of paper with a realist of Investments that you could take away and you could audit it and say yes if these Investments are here these are the values and you could check it out except they never owned any of it everything was false it was just a complete false list of Investments which they had cleverly worked out to give you the right number on the balance sheet alen Stanford quickly became rich in 1987 his bank's books stood nearly $15 million but 2 years later the authorities on the island of monara suddenly tightened their banking regulations in approximately 1989 um the monserat bank officials found out that Stanford had filed a bankrupt for bankruptcy in Texas and had not reported it to them and that was one of the reasons why he was kicked out of msat in the late ' 80s Alan Stanford quickly needed to find a new location if he didn't want to see his fake Bank collapse like a pyramid of sand fortunately for him there was no shortage of tax Havens in the Caribbean you know you can see Antiga from monserat so I can imagine alen Stanford going huh huh what am I going to do next I'm looking out over the horizon oh there's Antiga Antigua and Barbuda are two West Indian islands to the north of guadaloop and they gained independence in 1981 a single family ruled over the 80,000 inhabitants the bird family suspected of dabbling in arms and cocaine smuggling the dynasty transformed this idilic country into a refuge for criminals of all kinds one day I go to a lunch and I meet a man who is a fugitive from the United States he was indicted in the United States for bank fraud and he' moved to Antigua he became a citizen of of Antigua and at that time the Antiguan government would not let anybody be extradited so this American had moved to Antigua and he was sitting there having lunch living very well eating some sort of wonderful seafood salad the next day who should I run into I ran into a online gambling King who had spent some time in the US federal prison so on two consecutive days you meet people who are getting in deep trouble with the US law and they're going to Antigua so it's a small island but there seemed to be a relatively High concentration of some white color criminals in the early 1990s Alan Stanford on leaving monser contacted the bird family Martina Johnson is a journalist in Antigua she's investigated the Banker's rise so when Stanford would have come here the government would have welcomed that sort of investment because it offered the level of development that the country has always wanted and has always sought the bank of antig at the time in the early 1990s was having financial problems he was able to because he had stolen so much money already he was able to make loans and actually purchase the bank of Antiga to prop up the bank of Antiga which was very helpful to the bird family who was politically in charge he also um was able to bribe appropriate politicians to get what he needed to do of course when you have the head of the organization that should have been monitoring the bank that is part of this alleged corruption then is not that it is not that it went unnoticed it was just facilitated and ignored here there was no FBI or police to bother him Alan Stanford has found his own personal Kingdom in 1991 he built an impressive headquarters with a lot of Kit columns the building is one of the most luxurious on the [Music] island the very modest Stanford International Bank employed Island residents no one knew very much about Finance but that didn't really matter when you were working in a fake Bank today the offices are [Music] empty the files of the clients who are robbed are piled high but you can still imagine the prosperity that rained here for over 20 [Music] years it was like a Hollywood set where everything was the front of a building but as if you go and sneak a peek behind what appears to be the front of a building there's nothing there with a fine set you also need a good story and Alan Stanford had plenty of imagination okay he started by inventing a prestigious family history the Stanford Legacy began nearly 70 years ago back in Maha Texas where my grandfather started Stanford insurance company during the height of the Great Depression he repeated this Legend over many years in brochures interviews and corporate videos like this one but lus he may not have been a real Banker but he became a brilliant Communicator we were founded on my grandfather's strong simple philosophy build the business step by step building a business step by step hard work Clear Vision and value for clients his whole life story is invented he understood that people typically are not going to believe that a Man without any Financial Acumen from Maha Texas is managing a multi-billion dollar financial services company um on his own with Eagle Vision we will continue to search the world for new investment opportunities Alan Stanford adopted a highly symbolic logo the eagle of American independence the eagle Source because potential truly has no boundaries the eagle the eagle he had a fetish about eagles every office had a huge marble Eagle statue um kind of like the American Eagle you know the aggressive I might eat you kind of Eagle when he opened an office in Panama City the president of Panama came to the Stanford office opening and the gift was a huge Crystal eagle [Music] this was the mid 1990s and Wall Street Madness had contaminated the world with dreams of wealth and investments in stocks and shares Allan Stanford targeted a booming Market the middle classes in South [Music] America Jamie escalona an adviser on new technologies lived in Venezuela at the time attracted by Stanford's marketing he invested all of his savings $1.2 million the banks were very kind of nice luxurious they have a marble and very nice art in the banks and uh the economic situations even in Venezuela and other countries in Latin America they weren't that stable so we were looking for stability we didn't have a Social Security system that works we're looking for something that will give us a security for our future to be able to retire and to pay for our children's education as well the internet was still in its early days and there were few trustworthy sources of information so jam escono wasn't suspicious especially since the Stamford Banks were offering profitable and very safe Investments known as certificates of deposit or CDs unique thing about certificates of deposit usually they tend to be long term investments that helps a Ponzi scheme because you don't have a lot of people withdrawing their money at the same time because people are waiting for the maturation of the certificate of deposit the financial advisors they presented material that were very convincing material with the brochures and also letters of of guarantees that our investments will be secure and really the Investments weren't that higher than all banks they were like 1 2% higher higher so we didn't see that the the Investments or the returns that the bank's offering they were really out of whack they were kind of within reason so we felt comfortable like Jamie entire families invested between $10,000 and $1 million with unquestioning faith these huge sums almost all ended up in the pocket of Alan Stamford the con man boosted his Communications he spent more and more on all sorts of corporate videos and even on TV commercials broadcast on major channels like [Music] CNN theer must have an e Dave Henry was his in-house video producer he worked on more than a hundred of these films he worked on the image stuff you know he didn't work on the numbers when I saw him working it was working on scripts or working on brochures or working on the next video or working on what he was going to say when CNN interviewed him that day all right ready we are revamping our marketing strategy in effect we are Reinventing ourselves he was lying and it's easier to tell a lie once and have it videotaped then have to tell it over and over and over in person Alan Stanford encouraged everyone to act for the camera the sales people were naturally [Applause] talented and even James Davis his valuable accountant was forced to appear on camera four new platform funds were established to me the the most interesting thing that I found in my tape library and going back and looking at the two characters that are Alan Stanford and Jim Davis is we never pierce the armor of Alan Stanford he's always this guy confident bold I never saw a moment of Doubt when you go back and look at his right-hand man Jim Davis on tape man he was nervous stuttery had a lot of ticks you think in terms of did did I satisfy that need versus what it Wass the money would stare off into the distance when he was done with a take as if wondering about what he just said and that contrast only illuminates what an actor Allan Stanford was our business has expanded at such a rate that we now occupy Alan Stanford the actor when he wasn't playing the banker for the camera or falsifying the accounts dedicated himself to what he did best spending his investers money personifying the famous American saying he became larger than life he would often buy um real estate by planes and by boats he bought a mansion in Miami um which was a castle the house in St Croy I've seen it's amazing it sits up on a hill overlooking one of the harbors it was a superstar house really cool in these rare videos filmed by American law enforcement after his arrest we see the Texans unimaginable [Music] lifestyle this house comprises dozens of rooms a meeting room suitable for a spy movie with a retractable [Music] screen a gym and a collection of clothes shoes and beer on the island of Alan Stanford owned six other properties and even a shopping mall in Texas and Florida he owned more houses and luxury apartments but he spent most of his time at Sea aboard his Sea Eagle Allan Stanford had a very nice yacht but he wanted it to be 10t longer so rather than just buy a yacht that's 10t longer he actually had this yach expanded uh 10 or 12 ft longer which cost more than $100 million to to expand he had seven airplanes that he bought so he bought whatever toys he needed at the time and he had a full service group of Pilots servants and and people around him that he was paying constantly so he led a very good lifestyle at the turn of the century Alan Stanford was an immensely wealthy criminal who'd never been bothered by the American [Music] authorities at Fort Worth in the Texas offices of the Securities and Exchange Commission the American Financial Watchdog Alan Stanford had been suspected of financial fraud since [Music] 1997 two reports highlighting his activities had already been produced and yet in spite of repeated requests by investigators those in charge refused to open an investigation it was an individual in Fort Worth who was in charge of the Fort Worth Texas SEC enforcement division his name was Spencer barish as soon as he left the SEC um Allan Stanford tried to hire him we do know on one occasion without the permission of the SEC and behind the back of the SEC he actually met and provided services for Allen Stanford in exchange for money certainly it lends suspicion to the reasons he may have rejected the exam division's request for Action by the enforcement division Larry de Maria who is a Trader and Wall Street journalist says this kind of murky relationship was common you're making $100,000 a year uh for the SEC and then you're investigating somebody will pay you $250,000 a year or what are you going to do it it's happened all the time the laxity allowed the fraud to grow to a colossal scale between 2000 and 2001 Stamford International Bank announced record growth of 44% and for the first time in its history turnover of more than a billion [Music] dollars was by then a multi-billion dollar company that was all over the newspapers in New York and was making inroads not only in the Caribbean but in New York London uh zorich and elsewhere across the world wealth no longer seems to be the only goal of the Texan monster in these videos he displays more and more signs of excessive [Music] ego I've accomplished something that uh very few people have accomplished in their lifetime making money anymore is not my driving thing doing something that I enjoy and a change and ultimately is something that I feel real good about that's what's driving me Alan Stanford's personality gradually became unfathomable was he an exceptional mythomaniac or really schizophrenic he believed things about himself which were patently untrue maybe he came to believe that he was related to the to the founder of Stanford University maybe he came to believe that he was a genius with money maybe he came to believe he was aristocracy I personally think he came to believe his own myth that it wasn't it was an act but he came to believe his own act on the island of Antigua Stanford full of his own importance made himself a small Kingdom for his glory as you arrived at the airport everything belonged to him starting with the airline as you went up the Avenue you saw his bank then the Sticky Wicket a restaurant several financial institutions a fine dining restaurant and even an observatory to admire his [Music] demain he had so many businesses he was the second highest employer in Antiga after the government it was Stanford 900 plus workers none of those made money they all lost money and the airline I think cost him cost him cost the investors about $300 million before he shut it down again he owned property but he also wanted to own minds he created his own propaganda tool the Antigua Sun every week cop fantic articles were published in Praise of Stanford Antigua and the [Music] government in these editions dating from 2006 dozens of pages were devoted to a single event Alan Stanford had just been knighted by the government of Antigua his Knighthood um many antigun and I don't want to say most but many antigun were against it to get our highest national award would have been a slap in the face of residents who thought that he was too pump us and he tossed money at them and he thought very little of the people who live here when he was kned he he did referred to himself as Sir alen Stanford and and required or requested people to to call him sir alen Stanford as well what do you call somebody who thinks big but just doesn't have enough to do it you know they just don't they think bigger than they are egomaniacs is what you call them in private Stanford also behaved like a medieval Lord a powerful Sovereign who knows no one could resist he was a Serial womanizer but one time I was with him at a cocktail party I happened to be standing in the same conversation group and he somebody said you look a little rough today Allan or Mr Stanford and he said oh I'm hung over I got in early this morning I took my jet down to Port OFA last night I was chasing some [ __ ] so that was the kind of guy he was right here's the CEO he's everybody who was standing arounds boss and yet he would just tell you that he was out chasing skirt would be a nicer way of saying that um but that that just you know he didn't mind it was not a a secret that there were uh wives past wives girl friends children from many women when he wanted something Stanford had no limits in 2005 he paid $65 million to buy himself an island he own made an island just off the shore of Antiga here which you built a dummy house if you like to see how it would look and then knocked it down with a view to building it permanently [Music] later this was Alan Stanford's Monumental plan to transform his private island he wanted to build a club and a marina with capacity for up to 30 yachts in Antigua the impression of Alan Stanford's ostentatious and opulent wealth was was in strong contrast to the small wooden houses with corrugated roofs and the Caribbean islands regga rter atmosphere there were some people who who saw him as an investor who had interest in the development of the country and so he had great support from that group and then there was this other group uh that thought he was just here to grab our lands he was just here to take all the pristine properties and this man with money who is White is coming to manipul this little island and our leaders just accepted Monies to give him his way the local newspaper Outlet even wondered whether it was the government or Alan Stanford running the country many had no doubt that the island had gone from being a British colony to a Stanford Colony Alan Stanford was a massive individual in Antiga and when I say massive um he was powerful he was a dictator the in Antiguan barbuta protested against Stanford for a long time Stanford had given bread to the antiguans but now he was going to give them Sports to ensure their silence his greatest coup was funding the most popular sport in the Caribbean Cricket When Alan Stanford does something he doesn't do it by halves he does it to its best opposite his bank he built a magnificent stadium with a giant screen the Stanford cricket ground here is Alan Stanford to Richards in 2005 he brought together the best players from the Caribbean in a single team the superstars he set up a professional tournament in his name in which Caribbean teams played against the greatest nations in cricket such as [Applause] England it gave life to a sport that we love here in the Caribbean cricket and it put us on the international market because everyone ESPN the world was watching the Caribbean at the Stanford cricket ground Antiga was his Haven Bish I have one thing to say it was one hell of a [Applause] game away from reality Alan Stanford started taunting Wall Street in the mid naughties he tried to poach workers from historic Banks like meril Lynch or liman brothers I am Stanford I am Stanford I am St all these Traders came with their clients potential future victims Charles Haslett formerly at meril Lynch joined the Stanford Bank in 2002 attracted by the Texans persuasive arguments he was aloof and distant most of the time but if he was talking to you or trying to motivate you he can be very motivational 93,00 he threw around a lot of money you know mention big bonuses I want a car I want a $100,000 car for selling the most CDs uh he delivered on that you know it was B Big Show in front of the other employees you know Round of Applause for me kind of a little bit embarrassing actually for me you know I didn't like to be put in that position but I was happy to win the car Alan Stanford continu to gratify his need for power even when he was rewarding his employees at ceremonies like this one he prolonged the suspense by lining up the finalists on stage before announcing who would win the prize he must have spent 10 minutes walking behind each one of them and he tapped one on the shoulder of course that person thought they won the $10,000 and he go you know orelio did a good job Walton and touched the woman and go all the way across back and forth I compared it to like someone pulling Wings off of flies that's how horrible it was even even people in the audience were shifting around I've never seen a more egotistical egomaniacal performance by a person in my life and he finally tapped somebody he was just getting off and making these people feel uncomfortable to ensure the devotion of his employees he spent money lavishly in New York Stamford invited 300 financial advisers to the InterContinental Hotel the cost of the festivities was $1.5 Million there was a recreation of Studio 54 disco so they had a huge Ballroom in Midtown Manhattan decorated like Studio 54 with actors playing the famous people who hung out in Studio 54 like Andy warhole Elton John Bianca Jagger and they were going around with boxes of props making sure you had fun this party was over the top but that was typical they they'd go to a city and and go nuts for the weekend New Orleans Caracas London everybody in the office kind of I believe knew or had the same questions I did but nobody would speak up they were all making good money it's kind of look the other way because you're making your you know your annual income is probably twice what it normally would be you know in 2008 Alan Stanford was the 205th richest American according to the Forbes Magazine ranking his fortune was estimated at $2.2 billion but the Texon giant would see the base of his pyramid gradually start to crumble a handful of honest employees started to ask difficult questions Charles Haslet was one of them he wondered why an International Bank used a tiny accounting firm that was completely unknown their answer was that they had been with them for 20 years it's a small firm but it's very well-run uh that I should have no concerns I wanted more answers and they wouldn't give them to me at that point it became more like uh you know are you family are you are you do you trust us are you part of the team you know it was basically like this either I conform to how things are how things are and not ask any more questions or I resign so I didn't want to resign right away I said let me think about it and within 24 hours I did resign Larry de Maria also suspected massive fraud but he couldn't ask questions either he had four women who worked on desk leading up to his office and then he had a woman named Yolanda Suarez who was his chief of staff and it would have taken I think the first Marine Division to get through those four people to get into his office I think I was in his office maybe three times Larry was eventually fired for incompetence Alan Stanford attacked anyone who doubted him he sued everyone who came near him with any kind of complaint I mean he had 30 in-house lawyers and he had some top uh outside Council so I don't think he thought he had anything to worry about but in September 2008 The Noose started to tighten the world was experiencing the worst financial crisis in history which two months later brought about the very public arrest of Bernard madof who ran a Ponzi scheme worth $65 [Music] billion that warning would have worried the most determined of criminals but not Alan Stanford who proclaimed loud and clear that he would come out of the crisis without a blemish International Advisory board meeting but our balance sheet is strong our liquidity is exceptional and we are in these difficult times going to grow our business and I think that his downfall was close but Alan Stanford was in total denial for years he thought he'd gained the protection of the American political class by contributing to election campaigns the businessman gave a total of $1.6 million to the Republican and Democrat parties one of the beneficiaries was Barack Obama in 2008 that same year he contributed $200,000 to the Democrats Congressional Campaign at the party's National Convention he was warmly thanked by Bill Clinton and I'd like to thank the Sanford Financial Group for helping to underwrite this in 2008 George Bush also thanked him in this official letter companies like yours are helping more Americans build a solid foundation for the [Music] future despite these connections the con artist couldn't hold out much longer his bank claimed to hold $8.5 billion whereas in reality it only had 20 million the only reason these guys were caught was because during the financial crisis everybody want they everybody got scared in this country when all the mortgages going now people being thrown out of work people wanted to get their money back and for the first time in his history the new Investments were not sufficient to cover the withdrawals they didn't have the money to give them back was that's what it's a pzi scheme so that's why they were caught the government didn't catch them the media didn't catch them they were caught because there was other Crooks brought down the financial system the complaints were piling up and in February 2009 Paul pettier a prosecutor in Florida succeeded in worrying Alan Stanford he arrested Laura pendus Holt one of his close collaborators for a minor offense in order to try to obtain information we attempted to interview Laura Pendergrass Hol after her arrest um um but that was not successful um because um she she quickly got an attorney and and and the interview interview was ended before we um were able to examine her about the assets or the lack of Assets in in Stanford International Bank but this first arrest was to bring down the fraudsters Empire like a house of cards that was the seminal event for obtaining the rest of the evidence that this whole uh Enterprise was a big Ponzi ske Jame Davis saw her arrest quickly and knew that he was next and he did not want to be arrested that way he readily admitted that the um Stanford International Bank was a Ponzi scheme from day one and that they had been lying to investors with false accounting false results false reports and they had been mishandling the Investments for a long long time approximately 25 years Alan Stanford was arrested on the 17th of February 2009 in Virginia hiding in a girlfriend's house he was immediately sent to prison but he didn't seem to realize what was happening and claimed he was innocent he went on TV a couple of the times saying that this was all a big mistake a big misunderstanding that the Investments were there that there was hard assets um and that there was $5 billion and that this was a big scheme by the SEC to to ruin him at the time Aram Roston obtained an interview with Alan Stanford who pretended to be surprised he acted very heartfelt he tried to get across that his world was now collapsing and he tried he tried to make it sound that he deserved pity he implored me at one point I remember he said think imagine have you ever lost somebody have you ever lost a loved one has anybody ever close to you ever died he said that's what it's like for me now because of course he's comparing this to losing his company and everything he owned all his accounts were frozen on on the 17th of February 2009 the SEC closed all the Stanford Banks and raided the offices in Houston ladies and gentlemen uh a federal Fort has uh put this entity under uh receivership for the investors it was chaos St we went to the bank and there were a lot of people there at the bank in trying to get into the building they were hundreds of people lying up uh people crying people panicking they were trying to get the the financial advisers getting some answers there were so many people there it felt like it being in a riot within a bank meanwhile in prison Alan Stanford was savagely beaten up by a fellow de he got famously beaten up really really badly in prison um it's it's been a rough it's been a rough go for Alan Stanford I can't say I feel sorry for him but he hasn't gotten the country club treatment that so many white collar criminals get in this country he's had the real Penitentiary experience the trial started in Houston in 2012 over 7 weeks Alan Stanford's arguments were very very vague given the damning proof he showed absolutely no Humanity towards his 21,000 victims he was very unsympathetic didn't see any emotions he didn't uh make any any apologies to the victims the people affected so uh it's one of the things that uh he didn't apologized in May 2012 he was sentenced to 110 years in prison his victims have so far receiv received only 1 cent for every dollar lost for Jamie that corresponds to $99,000 out of the $1.2 million invested so for the last 7 years he's been fighting to highlight the situation through his victims group I try not to get the sentimental is very kind of difficult for me to receive personal stories about people dying um people desperate sometime asking me for help because uh they don't have food or they don't have money to pay for operations uh it's terrible this see having even young people and old people dying and all being able to pay for their living expenses it's very hard when I receive all these letters it's telling me my husband died he had a heart attack he couldn't handle losing everything after 50 years working hard this case was important to me because we were able to put the bad people in jail but we were never able to finish recovering their money I left the government in 2011 and um so I was never able to finish the job of recovering the money for the victims and that you know still bothers me today Alan Stanford is now 66 years old and he will end his life in a prison in Florida his story is rarely in the media these days and yet it was the second largest Ponzi scheme in history this is a story that that hasn't been told that's not getting enough attention because it's lived in the shadow of Bernie ma off and it's a it's a real American Tragedy you know there's so many victims and it's put so many people in such a bad place and the US government did a terrible job of monitoring it seemed to me that the entire very sophisticated Wall Street and American systems of finance and law banking had all conspired to let him happen and so I think the Allen Stanford story is a story of the complete failure of the American um Financial system people are always looking for better return so when there's someone dangling that carrot which was Allan Stanford people bite and I think it was a combination of those things Pon have been around forever you know they're they're going to still continue uh and are normally done by people that are smart charming and uh and organized and know and know how to do it true to himself Alan Stanford is still trying to write his own myth on his own he's written a case review request running to 300 pages and he's published a book written by a fellow detainee its subject is innocent man who is broken by being thrown in prison [Music]

Channel: SLICE Full Doc

Views: 153,852

Keywords: documentary, free documentary, raw, Crime Documentary, Allen Stanford, Ponzi Scheme, Financial Fraud, Billionaire Scam, Stanford International, White Collar Crime, Financial Scandal, True Crime, Banking Fraud, Fraud Investigation, Texan Conman, Rise And Fall, Billion Dollar Scam, Philanthropist To Prisoner

Id: xT2fIXbhSYY

Length: 53min 41sec (3221 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 15 2024