Stanford Group leaves a legacy of broken trust

From Slidell to Lake Charles, men and women trusted their retirement, their insurance money, their life savings to The Stanford Group. They invested with Louisiana natives. Now they have next to nothing — if anything at all, the Baton Rouge Business Report reports. There are, of course, the wealthy investors — those high-profile businessmen and women in Baton Rouge and Lafayette who had a portion of their portfolio with Stanford. No one knows for sure who they all are. But outside of the cocktail parties and the fundraising dinners with the city’s elite, chances are you know someone who lost money on certificates of deposit that were sold through an offshore bank affiliate and posted consistently above-average returns. Whether or not they’ve told you, the Stanford investor is your neighbor, your friend. He sits next to you in church. He cheers beside you in the stands. He can no longer buy season tickets to LSU football games. He can’t go fishing on weekends. And when he can’t pay his mortgage or put food on his table, you’ll finally see it on his face. You’ll realize the trust on which Stanford operated has broken much of the face of Baton Rouge. Behind the glistening marble and rich mahogany frames of Stanford Group Company, there is very little wealth to be found. It’s estimated that $8 billion was lost in what has been described as an elaborate Ponzi scheme — one that might cost the Capital and Acadiana regions as much as $1 billion. To read the full story, click here. — Olivia Watkins