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Fraudster R. Allen Stanford was Antigua's largest employer after the government and before his company, Stanford International Bank, was charged with running a $7 billion Ponzi scheme in February and shut down. The nation's former top financial regulator, Leroy King, has also been indicted in the U.S. for hiding the alleged fraud from regulators, and Stanford investors are suing the Antiguan government for $24 billion, charging it was Stanford's "full partner in crime." The Caribbean island has denied any involvement in the scandal and said 85,000 people have lost their jobs and the country's image as an offshore finance destination is blackened. According to Reuters, Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer told the nation in a broadcast Thursday that the leftist Venezuelan leader was providing the $50 million. Spencer led his country to join Chavez's ALBA alliance of leftist Latin American states just two months ago. He said the Venezuelan emergency help came "completely without precondition," but gave no details of the terms. Finance Minister Harold Lovell said $35 million of the "generous and timely" Venezuelan support would be used for "budgetary support," $7 million would be employed for "economic stimulus," while $6.5 million would go toward improving administration of revenues and spending. The remaining $1.5 million would be used to fund activities and programs that provide social protection for the poor and unemployed, Lovell said. Venezuelan investors were among many who suffered losses not only in Antigua but in Caracas, Venezuela, where Stanford had a branch office. - Donna Block
CategoriesComments
From: Pellucid,
Not one penny is going to the Stanford investors. Antigua took another big step towards being a rogue nation today. I would encourage a complete tourism and financial boycott to counter this threat.
Posted on:
August 15, 2009 3:37 PM
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Hugo Chavez to the rescue. The Venezuelan president is bailing out the island nation of Antigua and Barbuda to the tune of $50 million as it tries to recover from a far-reaching banking scandal and the recession. 
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Only 800 jobs were lost, not 85,000. The latter number is the population of Antigua.