Search Results for: Antigua

BY LEAH GERMAIN

THE GOLDEN rule of investments has and continues to be – if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. The most recent example of this advice being disregarded causing a high profile court case involves R Allen Stanford, Texan-banker and former multi-millionaire.…

BY LEAH GERMAIN, IN EDMONTON

THE TRIAL of Texas-banker Allen Stanford, accused of defrauding investors out of US dollars USD7 billion began in a Houston court room on Tuesday January 24th, nearly three years after the original charges were laid. Mr Stanford, who owned and operated the Antigua-based Stanford International Bank, was originally arrested in 2009 and is accused of 14 different counts of defrauding over 30,000 investors from over 113 countries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

PEER review reports on tax rules coordinated by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) have attacked jurisdictions over tax information law weaknesses, including the UK. It had "insufficient mechanisms…to identify owners of bearer shares and…restrictive…statutory information gathering powers," said the OECD.…

BY GERARD O’DWYER

IF there is one region where high standards in fighting money laundering and terrorist finance are expected, it is surely the five Nordic states: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland. Notwithstanding the criticism leveled at Iceland’s financial regulators during the credit crunch, all five countries have admirable traditions of public openness, government efficiency and international cooperation, especially amongst themselves.…

BY KASHMIR HILL

TEXAS financier R Allen Stanford built an US$8.5-billion Caribbean banking empire catering to 30,000 customers in 131 countries, but this year Stanford was indicted for swindling those investors in a massive, ongoing fraud. The US government is calling it a Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors of US$7 billion, making it the second largest of the era after Bernie Madoff’s.…

BY ALAN OSBORN, in London, and SUZANNE KOELEGA, in Sint Maarten, Dutch West Indies

AS with much of life today, the future of gambling is closely tied to the Internet, and this development of an international industry based on instant cross-border cash flows has raised understandable concerns about money laundering.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE SAFETY certification of airports in the eastern Caribbean requires significant reform, an International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) report has stressed. Drawing on Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP) assessments, it raised concerns about airports in Trinidad & Tobago; Jamaica; Antigua & Barbuda; Grenada; St Kitts & Nevis; St.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has initialled new fishing access deals with two African island nations: São Tomé e Principe, off west Africa, and Madagascar, in the Indian Ocean. The Madagascan deal will last six years from January 2007, and exclusively covers tuna.…

BY WESLEY GIBBINGS, in Port of Spain, Trinidad

WITH its multiple small jurisdictions, offshore tax havens and proximity to both drug producing countries in Latin America and the United States, the Caribbean has always been a focus of global anti-money laundering efforts.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE ROLE of the Caribbean as a staging point for ill-gotten gains goes back to the trans-Atlantic misadventures of the first European ships over 400 years ago. It would appear some habits die hard. Wesley Gibbings reports from Port of Spain, Trinidad.…