Stanford bought a small store front in downtown Montserrat and named it Stanford International Bank. He hung a picture of his late Grandfather and named him the founder in 1936, it was all a lie. Within a year Stanford had accumulated 8.5billion in assets from its clients, mostly made of wealthy Latin Americans. He would promise higher returns on clients Certificates of Deposits (CD) claiming he didn’t have all the red tape and fees that other financial institutions had. Stanford eventually expanded in the US Virgin Island and into Houston, TX.
Stanford used people money in the form of CD’s to build his own wealth, and sometimes showing small dividends by paying investors with other investors money. This was a typical Ponzi scheme. There were several accusation along the way, but they all seemed to be ignored.
Leyla Wydler, who had worked for Stanford, alerted the authorities back in 2003 was the