Behind the Badge
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service

Allen Stanford

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Postal Inspector Clayton Gerber was a lead investigator on the Stanford investment fraud case.

For twenty years, Allen Stanford lured investors to buy certificates of deposit in his offshore Stanford International Bank with the promise of high returns. But the investments were a scam: Stanford used money from new investors to pay off the old. The ruse fell apart when nervous investors tried to withdraw their money.

Since Stanford conducted some of his shady business through the mail, the Postal Inspection Service joined the investigation team with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Internal Revenue Service. In 2012, Allen Stanford was sentenced to 110 years in prison for masterminding a $7 billion Ponzi scheme.

Postal Inspector Clayton Gerber remarks on Stanford’s fraud victims

Postal Inspector Clayton Gerber remarks on Stanford’s fraud victims and their inclination to trust information because it came through the mail.

Clayton Gerber:  My name is Clayton Gerber.  I’m a United States postal inspector.  I was part of the team that investigated Robert Allen Stanford and the Stanford International Bank.  I interviewed a victim in South Florida.  The husband and wife were sitting together.  This was about three or four weeks after Mr. Stanford’s scheme had collapsed.  It was very clear the money didn’t exist.  The receiver had done a significant amount of preliminary investigation.  There was no money left to pay any of the victims.

The wife was clutching her statement, said to me, “It’s not possible, the money can't all be gone.  It says right here in my statement that our money is here.”  I said, “Ma’am, you believe your money is there because that was printed on that statement and you received it in the mail.  If I printed a statement that said you have zero dollars in your account, would you believe that?”  She said, “No, I wouldn’t believe that.”  I said, “That amount of money listed on your statement, is just what’s printed on a piece of paper.  But you believe it because you received it in the mail.”  It became clear to me at that point in time why we do these investigations that we do.  People trust what they get in the mail.

Postal Inspector Clayton Gerber describes the Postal Inspection Service’s investigation into Stanford’s operation

Postal Inspector Clayton Gerber describes the Postal Inspection Service’s investigation into Stanford’s operation, including the tip that lead to his arrest.

Clayton Gerber:  My name is Clayton Gerber.  I’m a United States postal inspector.  I was part of the team that investigated Robert Allen Stanford and the Stanford International Bank.  The Securities and Exchange Commission had been looking at Mr. Stanford off and on for several years.  By the middle of 2008, the investigation into Mr. Stanford’s bank and his rates of returns had really reached a fairly rapid pace.  Then around June of 2008, postal inspectors were asked to join the investigation given our past track record and history of investigating large Ponzi schemes.  It became very clear that Mr. Stanford’s scheme wasn’t going to survive.  The Securities and Exchange Commission filed with the court to have a receiver appointed to take over all of Mr. Stanford’s business operations since February of 2009.

On February 17, 2009, all of his domestic businesses were taken over by a receiver appointed by the court.  That’s when the reality of the investments was laid bare.  One of the steps involved is to serve all of the employees of Stanford’s company and including Mr. Stanford himself with the receivership order by the court.  But at this point in time Mr. Stanford had disappeared and no one knew where he was. 

About a week before the receivership order came through, a postal inspector had a received a call from a relative of theirs who was a pilot.  They were one of the private pilots that flew one of Mr. Stanford’s planes.  They said they were fairly sure they knew where Mr. Stanford was.  They had flown him to the middle of Virginia to stay at his then girlfriend’s family’s home outside of Fredericksburg, Virginia.  Sure enough that’s where Mr. Stanford was staying waiting for someone to come and find him.

Behind the Badge