Antigua really knows how to punish these financial criminals.

[rug]

ST. JOHN’S, Antigua — Disgraced Texas financier R. Allen Stanford is being stripped of his knighthood in the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda, the head of the government panel that approves the awards said Monday.

The National Honors Committee voted unanimously to revoke Stanford’s title for embarrassing the nation by running an alleged Ponzi scheme out of his Antigua-based offshore bank, Chairwoman Jacqui Quinn-Leandro said.

Stanford, once a benefactor of the Antiguan government, is in jail in Texas awaiting charges for allegedly defrauding some 28,000 investors out of $7 billion by selling them what U.S. authorities say were bogus certificates of deposits.

“It’s not that we’re saying he’s guilty, but it’s the honor that has been brought into disrepute,” said Quinn-Leandro, also a member of Parliament.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/6698927.html