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The Family that Cons together

From the Hall of Infamy blog:

"When a con artist builds and tends a Ponzi scheme, he must sometimes long for a partner in crime.  He must wish there was someone he could trust with everything - a person with whom he could talk freely.  A strategist, a confidant.  A brother.

R. Allen Stanford, who's accused of orchestrating a multi-billion Ponzi scheme, may have had such a person. 

According to his CFO and long-time friend, Stanford sealed his arrangement with a regulator of his Antigua bank by becoming his blood brother, reports The New York Times. 

In a plea agreement, James M. Davis said that Stanford and the bank supervisor, Leroy King, cut their wrists and mixed their blood as part of a "brotherhood ceremony." 

From that point on, King allegedly referred to Stanford as "Big Brother" and enjoyed gifts of fraternity, including tickets to the Super Bowl."

The Hall of Infamy is a new blog about con criminals.

Ponzi obtained strategic alliances in a number of ways.  But the one I like the best was his practice of "lending" money to judges, policemen, and other notable authority fiqures, who then in turn "invested the loan" in Ponzi's Security Exchange Company.  

But, I don't think this device has anything to do with obtaining strategic advice, it is largely designed to usurp the authority and prestige of others and confer it to the con criminal's scheme.

A cheap way to obtain instant credibility and authority.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Texas Financier and Antiguan Official Charged With Fraud (nytimes.com)
• One last bizarre turn in Stanford case (dailyfinance.com)
• Sir Allen Stanford taken to hospital as finance director pleads guilty to fraud (telegraph.co.uk)
• Stanford Pleads Not Guilty in Fraud Case (nytimes.com)
• Expecting the Wrong things From Regulators (bizop.ca)

Full post as published by Misleading Advertising Law on September 14, 2009 (boomark / email).