Tom Raffanello and R. Allen Stanford

Tom Raffanello (for it is he)

Waaaaaaay back on the 19th February 2009, your humble servant wrote this post that mentioned a certain Tom Raffanello. At the time of the Stanford Ponzi blow-up, Raffanello was head of Stanford Financial Group's security department. Previous to that he was head of Miami's DEA. Here's how my post went:

There's a lot of speculation and chatter about possible connections between Cur Allen Stanford and the heady world of narcotrafficking this morning, but away from pure jawboning there is a solid and verifiable link between Stanford and the world of drugs.

However, it's...err...ahem...on the other side of the ....errr...coin. A guy called Tom Raffanello is (or perhaps was) head of the Stanford Financial Group security department. The thing is that once upon a time......errrr.....how can I put this?...hmmmmm....he was head of the Miami DEA! Yep, true, here's a link to Google returns that show our friend Tom was a DEA guy way back then.

Now, of course, we all know that the Miami DEA fight drugs to man and never take bribes and don't have the slightest suspicion of wrongdoing in their illustrious and squeaky-clean history.

All the same, quite a coincidence, n'est pas?

Bad pennies are as bad pennies does. Last week Raffanello was indicted by the US good-guy-bad-guy people. Here's Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A security director for the shuttered Stanford Financial Group, and a deputy, were indicted for their alleged role in obstructing the probe of group's alleged $7 billion fraud, court documents unsealed on Thursday showed.

Thomas Raffanello, a former security director at the group's office at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was charged with three counts.

And here's Reuters again

 FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Sept 11 (Reuters) - The security
chief accused of illegally shredding documents at Stanford
Financial Group was simply "taking out the garbage" and
committed no crime, his lawyer said in a court filing.

 Thomas Raffanello, 61, who before joining Stanford was
chief of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Miami
office, was taken into a Fort Lauderdale federal courtroom in
shackles on Friday to face charges of conspiracy, obstruction
of justice and destroying records.

 Raffanello served as the global security chief for Stanford
Financial Group (SFG), the Texas-based banking company accused
in an alleged $7 billion Ponzi scheme that bilked investors who
bought certificates of deposit from Stanford's Caribbean bank.

 Raffanello, of Coral Gables, Florida, and a deputy, Bruce
Perraud, 42, of Weston, Florida, are accused of shredding
documents at SFG's Fort Lauderdale offices after the
court-appointed receiver for Stanford ordered company employees
not to destroy any documents.

 U.S. Magistrate Robin Rosenbaum granted Raffanello $100,000
bond at his brief hearing on Friday. Raffanello was set to
be arraigned on Sept. 18

So now that he's been arraigned, the word is on the street about Stanford's connection to the world of Miami drugs and the people he employed who were so keen on covering up for him....about seven months after IKN first broke the connection.

Just sayin'