Antigua and Barbuda: Antigua – White List or White Wash? – Kahnawake Gambles!

Antigua & Barbuda's application for entry onto the UK's extremely valuable White List was rejected in 2007.

In December 2009, the jurisdiction was white-listed after having "substantially implemented the internationally agreed tax standards of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development."

White listing now enables Antiguan licensees to advertise their gaming services within the UK.

This listing has continued despite the huge banking scandal that has adversely affected thousands of investors worldwide as a direct consequence of the criminal activities of Stanford International Bank, Antigua's largest bank, with the complicity of Leroy King, former head of the Financial Services Regulatory Commission.

In the same way, the ponderous lack of extradition of Leroy King has escaped recognition.

Long forgotten, are the two significant Advisories placed on the entire Island of Antigua by both the UK and the US Treasuries, which were lifted after the Antiguan Government was forced to remove Stanford from his position of influence over financial regulation.

Long forgotten is a US Senate report highlighting concerns about Antigua's links to correspondent banking. Described at the time by the U.S. Department of Justice as "the largest case of non-drug-related money laundering every brought to justice," the case was significant enough to warrant inclusion in a report dated February 5, 2001, produced by the Minority Staff of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, entitled Correspondent Banking: A Gateway to Money Laundering.

Meanwhile, one of the world's largest and strongest banks, HSBC, headquartered in London, with intoxicating correspondent banking relationships with Stanford, approved by regulators in London, Antigua, Caymans and the USA, is mired in the criminal activities of R. Allen Stanford's certificate of deposit frauds.

However, more recently, and much more disturbingly, it has been revealed that HSBC is deeply implicated in frauds involving hitherto supposedly secure interbank transfer of funds.

Incredibly, despite this, Kahnawake, a sovereign territory of the Mohawk region located outside Montreal, Quebec, Canada has signed a Memorandum of Understanding, which is to be enacted in three months with the Antigua & Barbuda Financial Services Regulatory Commission.

A press release last week announced that the MOU "is designed to recognise the inter-connectedness of remote gaming regulators – providing operators an unprecedented degree of flexibility for their licensing and hosting needs – while respecting the independence and international obligations of each jurisdiction."

According to Caribarena.com, Director of Gaming Kaye McDonald claimed, "Antigua and Barbuda internet gaming companies that are licensed, supervised and regulated by the Financial Services Regulatory Commission will have access to a wider bandwidth and technical services... to support their global gaming business ... in Kahnawake,"

She said. "They will be authorised, once the amendments in our gaming regulations are completed, to have authorization to be located in the Mohawk internet technology base centre..."

So, as a gambler, a simple question remains, does a jurisdiction where the largest bank in Antigua, the Stanford International Bank, has failed due to the most serious criminality, the head of financial regulation is desperately fighting extradition and the country is happy to expropriate foreign owned property, will you get a fair bet and receive your winnings? You decide!