Major conflict-of-interest in Stanford case at SEC

Major conflict-of-interest in Stanford case at SEC

WMR has learned from a source who was involved in the Enron scandal, offshore Panamanian brass plate operations that operated with the support of five banks -- Banco Nacional de Panama, TotalBank Panama, Banco Continental Panama, Global Bank Panama, and ABN-AMRO Bank -- and covert CIA Clinton era operations in Peru that supported Peruvian intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos -- code-named "The Doctor" by his CIA interlocutors, and Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, both now imprisoned for human rights crimes, that the receiver appointed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to handle the distribution of the assets of Sir Allen Stanford's collapsed financial empire has, himself, been under an SEC investigation.

Ralph Janvey, the Dallas attorney appointed on February 17, 2009, by U.S. Judge David Godbey to act as the receiver for Stanford's assets, is a former assistant director of securities for the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency. Janvey told the Houston Chronicle that he is on the side of the investors in Stanford's failed enterprises, some of which were previously reported by WMR to be involved in laundering drug money for the CIA in Panama and Antigua. Interestingly, Janvey is being assisted in his receivership functions by the Houston-based law firm of Baker Botts, for which former Secretary of State James Baker is a major partner.

WMR has learned that Janvey has been under an investigation by the SEC's Inspector General and, as of January 15 of this year was still under investigation. Nevertheless, he was appointed as the receiver for Stanford a little over a month later. Janvey was also involved in a fraud case that centered on suspicious Panamanian financial operations that were being conducted during the Clinton administration under the watchful eye of then-U.S. ambassador to Panama Simon Ferro, who acted as a more-than-diplomatic liaison to then-Panamanian President Ernesto Perez Balladares, one of the co-founders of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) and the inheritor of the private fortune of President Omar Torrijos, killed in a 1981 helicopter crash that ushered into power General Manuel Noriega and was blamed on the CIA. After leaving office, Balladares was accused of involvement in a scheme to smuggle Chinese illegal aliens into the United States and his U.S. visa was revoked.

To say that there is a troubling Panamanian link between the current investigation by the SEC and the Justice Department of Stanford, including his Panamanian operations, would be an understatement. Stanford was a major donor to the Democrats and Republicans and he was a guest at the Democratic National Convention in Denver that nominated Obama.

In July 1992, Pedro Miguel Gonzalez, the son of a PRD leader, was charged by Panamanian and U.S. authorities with the shooting death of U.S. Army Sergeant Zak Hernandez. The shooting took place on the eve of a visit by President George H. W. Bush to Panama to celebrate his invasion of the nation that saw the toppling of Noriega from power. Gonzalez was later acquitted of the charges by a Panamanian court. From 2007 to 2008, Gonzalez served as the President of the Panamanian National Assembly. The man who both Gonzalez turned to get U.S. criminal charges drooped against him was none other than super-lawyer with the CIA-linked Williams & Connolly law firm, Greg Craig, the lawyer who represented Bill Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Craig is now Chief Counsel to President Barack Obama. Balladares also turned to a Washington lawyer to have his U.S. visa restored. The lawyer was also Craig. These connections were cited by Eric Jackson in The Panama News last year.

It is clear that under the Balladeres presidency and that of his successor, Mireya Moscoso, Stanford's operations flourished in Panama. Ferro went on to work for the law firm Greenberg Traurig, the same law firm where jailed GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff, an interlocutor for the Russian-Israeli Mafia, also worked. Stanford's home base of Antigua was also a known center of operations for the Russian-Israeli mob. Stanford was involved in private banking in Israel. WMR previously reported that Stanford Group served as a feeder fund for Madoff Securities and that much of Madoff's money was being siphoned off to Israeli bank accounts. In September 2006, Stanford committee to invest in Israel's Catalyst II fund, which invests primarily in bio/pharma, telecommunications, and computer software. Senior Stanford executives visited Israel in 2006 to hammer out the deal.

Ferro, a friend of Hillary Clinton's brother Hugh Rodham, also helped represent Luis Posada Carriles, the Cuban exile involved in the 1976 terrorist bombing of a Cubana airliner off of Barbados.

WMR has learned that Janvey represented a Texas oil businessman accused of running a Stanford-like Ponzi scheme. The businessman claims Janvey's law firm insisted that the attorney fees be paid by untraceable money orders. The businessman also claims that Janvey was representing him in an SEC case at the same time the lawyer was also working for the SEC. The word from Texas is that the SEC office in Fort Worth is "out of control."

Florida Senator Bill Nelson brought the matter to the attention of the SEC's Inspector General Stanley Kotz. WMR has been told that the SEC, now under the direction of Obama's SEC chairman, Mary Schapiro, former CEO of the securities industries self-regulator, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FIRA), is now backtracking in its investigation of Janvey's previous conflict-of-interest with the agency. Schapiro was originally appointed to the SEC by Ronald Reagan, re-appointed by George H. W. Bush, and named acting chairman by Clinton.

Note: It was this editor's meeting with a source in Alexandria on March 17 concerning Stanford's money laundering activities in Panama that ultimately led to my arrest after questioning Alexandria police why my source on Panamanian activities was being arrested. My trial is scheduled for 9:30 am, May 20, 2009, in the Alexandria General Court. It would now appear, based on the information received from Texas, that the Stanford case has a high-profile, one that reaches into the Obama White House and the office of chief counsel Greg Craig.

There is also a link to the lawsuit brought by Ecuadorian Amazonian Indians against Chevron Texaco for Texaco's pollution of their native lands. If Chevron Texaco is found liable, it will be forced to pay some $27 billion to the Indians. However, that will put a crimp in Chevron Texaco's plans to build a Meso-American natural gas and oil pipeline that will connect Colombian reserves to Central America and southern Mexico, with a possible extension to Texas. Chevron Texaco has lined up a group of Panamanian officials to facilitate the project, part of which may have been funded, according to our Latin American sources, by Stanford's banking operations in Panama and Colombia. Pending the outcome of the Ecuadorian lawsuit, the Meso-American pipeline project is currently on hold. Some of the information this editor was gathering in Alexandria on March 17 involved the Meso-America project and the Ecuadorian lawsuit against Chevron Texaco. Chevron Texaco's Panamanian political and financial operations are not only linked to White House Counsel Craig but the firm also has former Bill Clinton U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor and Chief of Staff Mack McLarty and George H. W. Bush U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills working on behalf of its interests....