Latin American regulators clamp down on Stanford

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/biz/6272181.html


From Bogotá to Quito, regulators have taken control of Stanford Financial Group’s Latin American affiliates as investors scramble to recoup their pesos, bolivars, dollars and soles.

U.S. regulators placed the Houston-based financial firm run by R. Allen Stanford in receivership and froze its assets on Tuesday, touching off a wave of panic and regulatory actions throughout Central and South America.

In one of the boldest moves so far, the Venezuelan government on Thursday announced plans to sell Stanford’s bank in Caracas, two days after customers began lining up to withdraw their money.

Customers took out
$93 million before the government seized the bank, which operated 15 branches in the South American nation, according to Venezuelan newspaper El Siglo, which also reported that the bank has 15,000 customers.

In addition to its business with Stanford’s bank, Venezuelans are big investors in the Antigua branch of his Stanford Bank International.

According to El Universal, Venezuelans have invested $2.3 billion to $3 billion of with the Antigua bank.

Elsewhere:

Colombia

The government on Tuesday announced that it suspended the activities of Stanford’s brokerage unit and restricted it to completing pending market activities.

A day earlier, Stanford had increased its capital by
$3 million, according to Colombia’s financial regulators. At the end of 2008, the Associated Press reported, the unit had $8.6 million in capital.

Ecuador

[Doctor Cynic]

1. This is becoming a farce on so many levels.