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. Some customers arrived by private jet and were driven up the lushly landscaped driveway of the bank’s headquarters, only to be told that all assets were frozen pending an investigation by Antiguan banking regulators.
“I don’t know what to think. I have my life savings here,” said Reinaldo Pinto Ramos, 48, a Venezuelan software-firm owner.
Regional director Rose Romero of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Fort Worth office called it a “fraud of shocking magnitude that has spread its tentacles throughout the world.” The Associated Press
R. Allen Stanford Getty Images
