/EINPresswire.com/ Caracas, Venezuela. May 7, 2010. The non-US victims of the pyramidal fraud perpetrated by R. Allen Stanford, represented by the COALICION VICTIMAS DE STANFORD AMERICA LATINA, demand that the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) take responsibility for its ineptitude, negligence and complicity in the investigation of the “Stanford Case”.
“For the majority of the non-US victims, that represent more than 84% of the total depositors that believed in America’s ethical standards and the efficiency of its regulatory authorities, the Inspector General’s Report of the SEC, published on April 16th, 2010, is shameful and devastating” according to Jaime R. Escalona, Leader of the COALICION VICTIMAS DE STANFORD AMERICA LATINA.
“Since 1997, the office of the SEC in Fort Worth knew that R. Allen Stanford was presumably running a pyramidal fraud. ” Is it not inept and/or negligent to know a crime is being committed and not act? Did the pain the victims would inevitably suffer as a result of the economic devastation planned by Stanford not have any importance?” asks Escalona.
According to the Inspector General’s investigation, the Examiners of the SEC in Fort Worth could never convince the SEC’s Enforcement Division to open an investigation that could have stopped the sale of CDs in time and in consequence could have prevented this social catastrophe.
According to the SEC’s Inspector General, then chief of enforcement in Fort Worth, Spencer Barasch, always refused to investigate Stanford and additionally closed the investigations that other officials had initiated.
Furthermore, after leaving the SEC in 2005, Barasch, now a partner of the law firm Andrews Kurth, tried on three (3) occasions to represent Stanford before the SEC and was able to represent him during three (3) months in 2006. Escalona asks, “How much did this complicity cost the victims? Why did the SEC not have the valor to stop the immoral behavior of this government official?”
According to the shocking Report from the Inspector General, the Stanford Case was a difficult one that required a long investigation. Directors of the Fort Worth office knew that they were evaluated on the number of investigated cases. For this reason, novel or complex cases were dropped, without any regard for the consequences. In this case, the SEC’s staff knew of the growth of this fraud and did not investigate it.
But according to Escalona, “The saddest thing was to learn that the SEC did not give priority to the Stanford Case because in addition to being a complex case and difficult to investigate, the majority of the investors were foreigners”.
The COALICION VICTIMAS DE STANFORD AMERICA LATINA asks: “Is this a case of negligence or discrimination?”
Contact:
Jaime R. Escalona
Leader Coalicion Victimas de Stanford
America Latina
E-mail: [email protected];
[email protected]
Phone: (512) 377 9255
