Allen Stanford’s Ponzi scheme recovery tops $1 billion

Allen Stanford smiles as he waits to enter the Federal Courthouse in Houston March 6, 2012. REUTERS/Richard Carson/File Photo

Sept 20 (Reuters) – A court-appointed receiver has recouped more than $1 billion for victims of Texas financier Allen Stanford’s Ponzi scheme, the largest by dollar amount other than Bernard Madoff’s fraud, the receiver’s lawyers said on Monday.

The threshold was crossed when Ralph Janvey, the receiver for Stanford Financial Group, received $65 million from a June 2016 settlement with insurers including Lloyd’s of London, which won final court approval in January after years of litigation.

Janvey expects to distribute money from the settlement in the first quarter of 2022. As of April 29, he had received court approval to distribute about $550 million, and had distributed $443 million.

Once considered a billionaire but later declared indigent, Stanford, 71, is serving a 110-year prison sentence following his 2012 conviction for running a $7.2 billion Ponzi scheme affecting approximately 18,000 former investors.

Prosecutors said Stanford sold fraudulent high-yielding certificates of deposit through his Antigua-based Stanford International Bank, and used investor money to make risky investments and fund a lavish lifestyle.

The fraud lasted about two decades, and was uncovered in February 2009.

“When the receivership started, the…