Why did the British chuck Stanford bank out of Montserrat?
By Andrew Grant-Adamson • Feb 20th, 2009 • Category: JournalismAt the end of October I suggested the mainstream media was not paying sufficient attention to Allen Stanford and his offshore bank. It was, at that time, a relevant British story because he was using millions to buy influence in the world of cricket.
The attitude seemed rather like that of the desperate depositor outside the bank headquarters in Antigua who said this week that you hear things but you don’t want to believe them.
Today a Guardian headline says: “Alarm bells sounded in 1995…” And the copy says US regulators are facing tough questions over why they took so long to act. On the web the headline is different but the story the same.
In fact the alarm bells started back in the late 1980s in Montserrat, a tiny internally governing British Overseas Territory, where Stanford had first established his offshore bank in 1985.
I have been reliably told that the bank was of such concern to British financial regulators that the government of the island was effectively ordered to withdraw his banking licence. It seems that in 1990 or 91 he chose to surrender the Montserrat banking licence rather than be banned. That enabled him to move to Antigua and start buying influence there.
What I have not found out is why the British regulators were so concerned. It is something we should know.
Andrew Grant-Adamson is Andrew Grant-Adamson is a journalist who now teaches a new generation of writers, subs and editors at the University of Westminster.
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Although I love cricket it is not so important as journalism.
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We should be told.
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