Allen Stanford Stanford created and funded the Stanford 20/20 cricket tournament in the West Indies, for which he built his own ground in Antigua. The first Stanford 20/20 Cricket Tournament was held in July and August 2006. The second tournament took place in January and February 2008 with a global television audience of 300 million. Trinidad and Tobago took first place and with it the US $280,000 Stanford Super Series prize after defeating Middlesex on October 27, 2008. In June 2008, Stanford and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) signed a deal for five Twenty20 internationals between England and a West
Allen Stanford leaked cable message from the U.S. Embassy in the Bahamas reported as early as 2006 that companies under Stanford's control were "rumored to engage in bribery, money laundering, and political manipulation". The U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas at the time was reported to have "managed to stay out of any one-on-one photos with Stanford" during a charity breakfast event. Federal agents raided the offices of Stanford Financial on February 17, 2009, and treated it as "a kind of crime scene—cautioning people not to leave fingerprints". The SEC charged Stanford with "massive ongoing fraud" centered on an eight-billion-dollar investment scheme. Stanford's