Antigua sacks regulator over Stanford "cancer"

By Pascal Fletcher
MIAMI (Reuters) - Antigua and Barbuda's government on Tuesday dismissed the country's chief financial regulator over his alleged role in the Allen Stanford fraud case, and vowed to root out further corruption "cancer" if it existed.
Leroy King had already been suspended last week as head of the Caribbean nation's Financial Services Regulatory Commission (FSRC) over U.S. charges that he collaborated with Texas billionaire Stanford in a $7 billion "massive Ponzi scheme".
In announcing the Antigua and Barbuda cabinet's decision, Attorney General Justin Simon told Reuters he had received from U.S. authorities a request that King be detained pending a formal extradition process. This request for his arrest would be considered by the local judicial authorities, he said.
"Cabinet ... has agreed to accept the (FSRC) recommendation that Mr. King's employment as administrator be terminated with immediate effect," Simon said in an interview by telephone from the Antiguan capital St. John's.
Antigua and Barbuda was at the heart of Stanford's business empire stretching from the Caribbean to the United States, Latin America and Europe. Antigua's biggest bank, Stanford International Bank Ltd. (SIB), sold the certificates of deposit (CDs) the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) says bilked thousands of investors out of billions of dollars.
Stanford's detention hearing in Houston is set for Thursday morning.
The scandal surrounding Stanford, a flamboyant sports entrepreneur who was known as "Sir Allen" in Antigua after he was granted a knighthood by the government, had damaged the nation's image as an offshore finance destination, Simon said.
"The (SEC) report clearly is adverse ... and the effect clearly is not something of which we can be proud," he said.
On Friday, the amended SEC charges against Stanford, four associates and King alleged that the Antigua regulator received "thousands of dollars in bribes" from Stanford to ensure the FSRC "looked the other way" and conducted sham audits.
The SEC said King, acting as gamekeeper turned poacher, helped Stanford and his associates evade and obstruct U.S. probes into the Stanford business empire for several years.
Simon said the Antigua FSRC, now under new leadership, would "widen the scope of the investigation to include other offshore companies during the tenure of Mr. King".
This was "to ensure that the cancer which has been discovered has not spread, that it is limited to the Stanford situation," he said.
DID REGULATOR ACT ALONE?
The board of the Antigua financial regulatory authority, Simon said, was now being chaired by Althea Crick.
She had in the past led the country's financial watchdog "until Mr. Stanford may have influenced her removal," the attorney general said, acknowledging the power which the Texas billionaire had wielded over the country's financial sector. Continued...
Source: Reuters