Amid all this talk of suspicions about Allen Stanford and his method of business – many people might be asking themselves, who knew? Where was the media all this time? Let’s whistle back through the archives ten years…

From the Washington Post (October 11, 1999):

It started when the United States two years ago began pressuring Antigua to tighten regulation of its offshore financial industry. Prime Minister Lester Bird asked Stanford, a personal friend, to undertake the task.

Stanford, 49, accepted and even agreed to pay for the services of a group of U.S. experts to help rewrite laws and create a board, with himself as the president, to oversee the changes.

Over 18 months, new laws to control money laundering were passed. One prohibited cash deposits in offshore banks, and another increased the minimum amount of capital needed to open a bank from $1 million to $5 million. Five of the nation’s 54 offshore banks were shut, and another 20 are under review, including several Russian banks that had attracted international scrutiny. “Know your customer” laws were strengthened. The International Financial Sector Authority (IFSA) was created to oversee offshore activities.

“I have no doubt we have the best anti-money-laundering laws in the world,” said Patrick O’Brien, a former customs agent recruited by Stanford to write the laws. “We have things in there even the United States doesn’t have.”

But Antigua’s actions, instead of drawing praise from U.S. officials, brought down Washington’s wrath. On April 7, the Treasury Department issued a rare advisory, urging “enhanced scrutiny” of all financial transactions through Antigua.

In a letter to Bird, the Treasury Department said Antigua had “weakened its anti-money laundering laws to the point [that] they are now significantly below international standards, making Antigua more vulnerable to money laundering.” The British issued a similar advisory a few days later.

Ah, so he helped re-write the banking laws in a tiny Caribbean island and then the US and UK governments both warned that the changes had made the place a haven for money launderers. Hmmm.

Still, he seemed like a nice chap. Take this rather less critical piece from Cox News Service (June 17, 1999):

Tall and friendly, with a Texas drawl to match, the 49-year-old Stanford made his money in the early 1980s building houses in Houston. One neighborhood there, Stanford Oaks, still bears his name.

In the mid-1980s Stanford set up his first bank in the Caribbean – where he had once taught scuba diving – so that his homebuyers might have a place to deposit their escrows.

He opened his bank in Antigua in 1985. And today Stanford, who flies in and out of this island in a private jet, is like this island’s own Henry Potter, the character from It’s a Wonderful Life – only a kinder, gentler version – in that he seems to have his hands in almost every pie.

Potter comes in sixth in the top 50 movie villains of all time, so perhaps it’s not the most flattering of comparisons, but buried in the end of the piece is this nugget:

[P]rivately, U.S. officials continue to express suspicion over Antigua’s efforts, saying the island has a poor track record when it comes to keeping promises and cooperating with U.S. investigators in cases of suspected money laundering.

They also express suspicion when it comes to Stanford and his influence on the Antiguan government even though no one will pinpoint any wrongdoing.

Maybe lights should start flashing on the page…

Then again there’s ‘Banker drawing scrutiny; Houstonian’s Antigua empire raises questions’ from the Houston Chronicle (July 16, 2000). The piece reveals some of the former US officials Stanford brought in from the DEA, FBI and US Customs:

Prime Minister Bird asked Stanford in 1996 to spearhead an effort to revise Antigua’s banking laws, clean up the offshore sector and expand the industry.

At Stanford’s urging, Bird named Stanford’s attorney, Carlos Loumiet, an international law and banking expert, to a special advisory board. The panel included former officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Customs.

Two other members of Loumiet’s firm, including Pat O’Brien, a former U.S. Customs special agent for South Florida, joined the effort.

Still, it’s largely sympathetic, reflecting a view that the big United States government is looking to crush little Antigua’s efforts to become an international banking centre.

In an attempt to head off a row with the United States, Antigua sent a delegation – led by O’Brien – to Washington. It met with Jonathan Winer, then-head of the State Department’s Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. U.S. officials later complained that the delegation consisted mostly of individuals “who acknowledged they had been paid by a private-sector interest.”

Winer’s office issued a report a few weeks after the meeting, calling Antigua and Barbuda “one of the most attractive financial centers in the Caribbean for money launderers.”

Later, State Department officials were more explicit in their accusations: “Individuals suspected of involvement in money laundering and other illicit economic activities used their considerable financial influence to weaken Antigua’s anti-money laundering legislation,” the department noted in a report issued earlier this year.

The changes “undermined the ability of law enforcement to investigate and prosecute financial crimes,” the report said.

The State Department did not name the individuals it was referring to…

And the Chronicle obligingly found someone willing to cast doubt on the motives of the State Department:

Charles Intriago, publisher of the Miami newsletter Money Laundering Alert, said Winer and other State Department officials “seemed to go out of their way to highlight the role Stanford plays on that island.”

“People seem to have – like Winer – an obsessive interest in this guy and come up empty-handed,” Intriago said.

And just how did Stanford protect his interests against these bureaucratic sharks? Back to the Chronicle (March 6, 2002) again and ‘Houston Owner of Offshore Bank Learns Value of ‘Soft Money’ in Washington’:

Offshore bank owner R. Allen Stanford and his Houston firm were the largest contributors to a fund-raising group controlled by Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle at a time when lawmakers were considering bills to clamp down on money laundering, a watchdog group reported.

Stanford, owner of the largest offshore bank on the tiny Caribbean island of Antigua, and his Stanford Financial Group had long shied away from Washington politics.

But after being forced to wrestle with the Clinton administration to protect his offshore banking business, Stanford waded into the Washington political process.

Stanford and his firm donated $448,000 in unregulated, “soft money” contributions between July 1, 2000, and June 30, 2001, according to a study by consumer activist Ralph Nader’s Public Citizen.

So ten years ago, anyone willing to listen could hear the concerns that were raised by some government agencies about Allen Stanford’s method of business. They could learn about his track record of payouts to politicians and his conflicts of interests and his personal intervention in the banking regulation of Antigua.

But if you wanted to believe that he was a lovable champion of island underdogs – a kindlier, cuddlier Henry Potter de nos jours – then Stanford’s banks were open for your business. Which doesn’t make you lazy, stupid, or greedy…