Analysis
An informed source close to the investigation of Sir Allen Stanford’s failed Stanford Financial Group and Stanford International Bank has told WMR that there is another link between Stanford’s activities and those of jailed Ponzi scammer Bernard Madoff. While Madoff defrauded a number of wealthy American Jewish investors, Stanford, according to our source, was doing the same with the investments of a number of Latin American Jews, especially those from Mexico and Venezuela.
In some cases, however, Stanford, with the knowledge of the Jewish investors, was laundering and forwarding their money to groups planning the overthrow of elected progressive leaders such as Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in Argentina, and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. The leaders allegedly threatened the investments of Stanford’s Jewish clients in each of the nations targeted for coups.
In 2007, Venezuelan police raided the La Hebraica Jewish Community Center in Caracas and searched for weapons and explosives. Earlier, in November 2004, the center was raided by police for clues in the car bombing assassination on November 18 of government prosecutor Danilo Anderson. Police suspected that Anderson’s killers may have had help from “foreign groups.”
However, not all Venezuelan Jews are opposed to Chavez. When the Simon Wiesenthal Center attacked Chavez in 2006, Fred Pressner, president of the Confederation of Jewish Associations of Venezuela (CAIV), criticized the center for misinterpreting Chavez’s remarks and not consulting with CAIV before launching their tirade against Chavez.
In 2006, Chavez was challenged for the presidency by newspaper editor Teodoro Petkoff Malec, a one-time Communist guerrilla who abandoned communism to espouse neoconservative economic doctrines. Petkoff’s maternal heritage is Polish Jewish. Petkoff supported the U.S.-backed secessionist policies of oil-rich Zulia state governor Manuel Rosales, an opponent of Chavez. The Venezuelan Confederation of Israeli Associations has been a vocal opponent of Chavez.
In Bolivia, a strong opponent of Morales is Francisco Hubsch, the president of Bolivia’s Jewish community in the secessionist Santa Cruz region and Israel’s honorary consul in the city of Santa Cruz.
“Stanford handled the money from wealthy Latin American Jews in much the same way that Madoff handled the money of his Jewish clients in the United States,” said the source.
Another source likened the U.S. government’s investigation of Stanford to nude sun bathing. “When the tide went out on Madoff, Stanford was also left exposed and naked,” the source stated.
Perhaps fearing revelations coming from an indictment of Stanford, federal investigators have only thus far sued Allen Stanford for Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) violations. Stanford Financial Group Chief Investment Officer Laura Pendergest-Holt was indicted in February, while Chief Financial Officer James Davis is reportedly cooperating with the FBI and SEC in their investigations.
WMR has also learned of a financial relationship between Stanford’s operations in Antigua and principal players in the Russian-Israeli Mafia, which has long used the Caribbean island as a base for its money laundering operations.
WMR previously reported on Stanford’s operations in Venezuela, Panama, Ecuador, Peru, and Mexico being used to launder drug money for the CIA.
Last November, Venezuelan intelligence agents raided Stanford’s offices in Caracas and later charged that four of the firm’s employees in the Caracas office were U.S. intelligence agents. The Venezuelan agents also confiscated a number of files at the office.
