Concerns about Stanford started long ago

For nearly a decade there were whispers. Something about the high-yielding certificates of deposit offered by Stanford Financial Group just didn’t add up. Where exactly was the money invested once it left Stanford’s own bank in Antigua? How was it that the CD not only performed well, but regularly obliterated market averages? What truly was the risk exposure for clients? Those whispers turned into a shout Tuesday, when the Securities and Exchange Commission, accompanied by U.S. marshals, raided the firm’s Houston headquarters, charging the flamboyant founder Robert Allen Stanford, and two other officials with fraud in connection with the sale of more than $8 billion of the high-yielding CDs. Authorities charge the firm, whose investment roots were born in Baton Rouge in the 1990s, orchestrated a “fraud of shocking magnitude,” stretching from the Gulf Coast to the Caribbean, and around the world. Read the Business Report story about Stanford and the impact on local investors here.