FBI investigates possible links with Mexico drug gang

The FBI is probing possible money laundering linked to Mexico's infamous narco-trafficking Gulf Cartel in its investigation of Texan billionaire Sir Allen Stanford....

An FBI source close to the investigation would not give exact details but confirmed the agency was looking at links to international drug gangs as part of the huge investigation into Stanford's banking activities. Reports in the US have said Mexican authorities have detained one of Stanford's private planes as part of an investigation into possible links to the Gulf Cartel. It has been alleged cheques found inside the plane were linked to the cartel, which is one of the most violent criminal organisations in the world.

Sources in the US Drug Enforcement Administration also confirmed that while the investigations into Stanford's affairs were "with the FBI and Securities Exchange Commission, there may well have been a trail connecting his Mexican affairs to narco-trafficking interests. So far as we understand from information partially in the public domain, this has pertained to the Gulf Cartel, and items found aboard a private light aircraft."

"It's not going to be as if they would check every plane. Any connections to the narcos would have been followed for some time, and US law enforcement has been working with Mexico's banking regulators on a vast range of investigations, including Stanford's interests...

While Mexico's current narco war, which has claimed 7,000 lives in two years, has been billed as one "between cartels", it is, on the ground, something closer to an anarchic scramble between street-level gangs to whom dealing and smuggling have been "outsourced", while the Gulf Cartel and its peers concern themselves with a takeover of the Mexican economy and all-out war against what is left of the Mexican state the cartels do not control.

Legal troubles

Trademark infringement lawsuit

In 2001 Stanford said publicly that his great-great-great grandfather was a relative of Leland Stanford, the founder of Stanford University.[20] He funded the restoration of Leland Stanford’s mansion in Sacramento, California in an effort “to help preserve an important piece of Stanford family history,” and hired his own genealogists to prove he was a member of the Leland Stanford family.[8] However, Stanford University denied there was “any genealogical relationship between Allen Stanford and Leland Stanford,”[8] and in 2008 filed a trademark infringement suit against Stanford claiming the school’s name was being used “in a way that creates public confusion” and is “injurious.”[20]

Fraud allegations

See also: Stanford Financial Group

Reports surfaced in early February 2009 that the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Florida Office of Financial Regulation, and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, a major U.S. private-sector oversight body, were investigating Stanford’s company Stanford Financial Group,[21] questioning the way that Stanford International Bank manages to consistently make higher than market returns to its depositors.[22] A former executive told SEC officials that Stanford presented hypothetical investment results as actual historical data in sales pitches to clients.[23] Stanford claimed his CDs were as safe as, or safer than, U.S. government-insured accounts.[24]

Federal agents raided the offices of Stanford Financial on February 17, 2009,[25] and the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Allen Stanford with “massive ongoing fraud” centred on an eight billion dollar investment scheme.[3][26] Stanford’s assets along with those of his companies were frozen and placed into receivership by a U.S. federal judge,[27] who also ordered Stanford to surrender his passport.[28]

CNBC reported that Stanford tried to flee the country on February 17. He contacted a private jet owner and attempted to pay for a flight to Antigua with a credit card, but was refused because the company would accept only a wire transfer.[29]

FBI agents, acting at the request of the SEC, on February 19 located Stanford at his girlfriend’s house near Fredericksburg, Virginia and served him with civil legal papers filed by the SEC.[30] Stanford is not under arrest and is not in custody.[31] Stanford has surrendered his passport to federal prosecutors, and he has hired the prominent criminal defense lawyer Brendan Sullivan who represented Oliver North.[32] The SEC often files civil charges before criminal charges are filed.[33]

Money laundering investigation

The FBI and other agencies have been conducting an ongoing investigation of Stanford since 2008 for possible involvement in money laundering for Mexico’s Gulf Cartel.[34]

Tax liens

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, affirming much of a US Tax Court’s ruling on a dispute emanating from Stanford’s days of running the bank in Montserrat. In short, the court found that Stanford and his wife, Susan, under reported their 1990 federal taxes by $423,531.36.[7] Public records show Stanford owes hundreds of millions of dollars in federal taxes. There are four federal tax liens from 2007 and 2008 against Stanford totaling more than $212 million.[35]

1. I do not think that naturalized citizens cannot have dual citizenship: 8 US Code 1448

“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen;...I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same;...I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.”

2. Cannot have a title like normal Americans or Elton John (Queen Elton) for that matter.

(b) Hereditary titles or orders of nobility. In case the person applying for naturalization has borne any hereditary title, or has been of any of the orders of nobility in any foreign state, the applicant shall in addition to complying with the requirements of subsection (a) of this section, make under oath in the same public ceremony in which the oath of allegiance is administered, an express renunciation of such title or order of nobility, and such renunciation shall be recorded as a part of such proceedings.

There are always deceptions for the rich (Stanford) and powerful(O).

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