From the Must Read Website – Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis (quoting):
“The Securities and Exchange Commission knew since 1997 that R. Allen Stanford likely was operating a Ponzi scheme but waited 12 years to bring fraud charges against the billionaire, the agency inspector general said Friday.
An SEC enforcement official who helped quash investigations of Stanford’s business later legally represented him, according to a new report by the agency watchdog.
The SEC didn’t bring charges against Stanford until February 2009, when it alleged a $7 billion fraud. SEC Inspector General David Kotz said in the report that “institutional influence” in the enforcement division was a factor in the agency’s repeated decisions not to conduct a full investigation.” (end quoting)
There is more where that came from:
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/04/sec-staff-watched-porn-as-economy.html
