Allen Stanford’s Back – Slow to Justice R. Allen Stanford’s Trial Slogs On
Our good friend R. Allen Stanford is back in the news. His trial for the $7 billion dollar fraud he allegedly perpetrated.
To refresh memories regarding Mr. Stanford’s alleged crimes and his passion for cricket see the previous post here and here – and some good lessons on operational due diligence.
The first day of jury selection has ended in the oft-delayed trial of jailed Texas financier R Allen Stanford, who is accused of bilking investors out of $7billion in a vast Ponzi scheme. A federal judge spent Monday questioning 80 potential jurors. Stanford emerged in chains.
In other Stanford news, Bloomberg is reporting that the SEC is asking a judge to determine a payout plan for Stanford victims.
Here are old videos of Stanford in his own words talking about Antigua:
And video of Stanford being treated after being beaten by fellow inmates in prison:
Madoff Speaks, Allen Stanford Returns, Secondary Market for Madoff Claims and Hedge Funds Sweep for Bugs
It is being reported that Allen Stanford, is being transferred to join Bernie Madoff at the Butner Federal Correction Complex in North Carolina to undergo drug treatment:
It is also being reported that Madoff claims that many of the large banks and fund of hedge funds who invested with him were “wilfully blind” and “chose to ignore con.” Here is a video about it:
It also seems a secondary market has developed for betting on how successful Irving Picard will be in recovering Madoff claims…
Finally, the Financial Times is reporting that motivated by continued paranoia (is it paranoia if the government really is out to get hedge funds?…) surrounding government oversight of insider trading hedge funds have begun to hire security firms to perform sweeps their offices and homes for electronic bugs (aka: listening devices). Here’s a video about some of the technology used in these sweeps including hidden camera detectors, fiber optic cameras, spectrum analyzers, and non-linear junction detectors:
So what happens when they find one? Maybe it would be like when a man named Yasir Afifi found an FBI tracking device on his car and asked the Internet community to tell him if he was being spied upon. Perhaps hedge funds familiar with reverse engineering strategies could similarly reverse engineer the technology and begin spying on the government – or would that be considered insider trading….?
Insider Trading Update and The Wilpons, The Mets and Madoff
Here are a series of videos about recent hedge fund insider trading arrests / allegations:
Or perhaps so-called insider trading should be legalized?
And then of course there is the Wilpons and Madoff:
From CNBC:
ESPN’s take on the Wilpon / Madoff scandal (which the Wilpon’s claimed would not affect the NY Mets baseball team they own) including Larry King’s take on the subject:
Interesting Irving Picard’s lawsuit to clawback capital centers around the issue of operational due diligence red flags. Another interesting argument made Picard is that the Wilpon’s should have been even more aware of Madoff’s red flags because of their previous experience with Ponzi schemes. The Wilpon’s have a history of of investing with Ponzi’s schemes before – they invested in Sam Israel’s Bayou – perhaps Mario Cuomo may be able to mediate a settlement…
