ST. JOHN'S, Antigua – Panicky depositors were turned away from Stanford International Bank and some of its Latin American affiliates Wednesday, unable to withdraw their money after U.S. regulators accused Texas financier R. Allen Stanford of perpetrating an $8 billion fraud against his companies' investors.The little guy has had more than enough of his pound(s) of flesh removed. Go ahead, admit it. Aren't you experiencing the tiniest bit of schadenfreude?
Some customers arrived in Antigua by private jet and were driven up the lushly landscaped driveway of the bank's headquarters, only to be told that all assets have been frozen pending an investigation by Antiguan banking regulators.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Schadenfreude.
The greedy selfish tax dodgers are losing their money.
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7 comments:
I have taken a pretty good haircut along with many many others in my retirement accounts and other things. It is hard to feel sorry for these people.
In my wildest dreams I would never think about putting my dough in any bank in any tiny nation for this very reason - good luck handline the "antiguan authorities".
Go read the stories on chron.com. These people were shysters who managed to hook a lot of wealthy/dumb people. They were telling their suckers that these accounts were safer than FDIC-insured deposits... and they fell for it!
Also looks like a lot of locals had their tiny life savings in those banks too. I do feel sorry for them - not for the fat cats.
I wouldn't call it "the tiniest bit".
More like, "massive and massive amounts".
I looked over one of those island accounts some years back when I was hunting good CD rates. (I lived overseas, so this was no big deal, really.) It was interesting -- and alarming.
They were offering several percentage points better than anyone else, sure. But plain as day, they were not insured, nor was there any way to get your money out early, even if you wanted to pay a penalty!
They also stated (if I remember correctly) that they invested the money in higher yielding investments than most other banks. If that doesn't set off alarms...
What I find hard to believe is how anyone who has the sense to amass $100k or so in loose cash would lack the sense of reading through the FAQs some of those banks offer before he sent a huge wire transfer. Here's an example:
"Are deposits in [bank] protected by FDIC insurance or any similar deposit insurance plan?
Deposits in all private or offshore banks in the Caribbean and around the world are not protected by FDIC insurance or any other insurance plan."
Get that? Or ANY OTHER INSURANCE PLAN! Alarm, alarm!
But then again, maybe the customers were just too enticed by these parts:
"Will my account be subject to taxation? Income derived from interest in your account is tax-exempt in [our location...]"
"Will information concerning my account ever be divulged or reported to any third parties?
All bank accounts and transactions of our clients are strictly private and confidential."
Nah, people wouldn't give up safety just to eliminate tax reporting, would they? OK, maybe a couple of 'em did.
Question is, can they or will they try to report and deduct this as a fraud/theft loss on their tax returns!? Eeeek!
I do feel sorry for locals, though, if their accounts get snared into this mess.
It will be interesting to see some of those swindled attempt to use the US justice system to get their money back. My guess is most of them will not. To do so invites IRS scrutiny.
They had a tremendous presence in sports - I wonder how many athletes had money with them.
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