Rogue Financier U. S. Drug Informant?

 The (UK) Independent reports that Texas billionaire ‘Sir’ Allen Stanford may have been an anti-drug informant for the American Drug Enforcement Agency for a decade and, in return, Stanford was given official government protection to run his scam banking empire free of government oversight.

A BBC Panorama programme, to be screened tonight, alleges that the 6ft 4in-tall businessman may have been allowed to run his banking business unfettered for up to a decade because he was passing information on to America’s Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) about the money-laundering activities of drug baron clients from Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela. (‘Bulo aside: Which means he was collecting billions in narco-dollars for his corrupt business, and the US government KNEW he was collecting that money.)

His status as a confidential informant could have secured Stanford a degree of protection from financial regulators such as the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and may explain why a SEC investigation into his dealings in 2006 was quietly dropped following a request by another American government agency.

A source close to the DEA told Panorama: “We were convinced that Stanford’s bank attracted millions of narco-dollars but it was very difficult to get the evidence to nail him. The word is that Stanford has been a confidential informer for the DEA since at least 1999.”

Lest anyone forget, 28,000 depositors basically went bankrupt due to Stanford’s criminal enterprise. An enterprise which was underwritten and facilitated by the United States government.

Sickening. Major El Somnambulo Tip of the Sombrero to Americablog  for bringing this story to his attention.