by Patsy R. Brumfield/NEMS Daily Journal
01.18.12 – 04:39 pm

Investors who lost money in the failure of Antigua-based Stanford International Bank Ltd. should submit formal claims, its liquidator said Wednesday.

More than 30,000 investors worldwide lost more than $7.2 billion when the bank and the Stanford Financial Group empire collapsed in 2009 under a fraud investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Scores of Missisissippians were among them, doing business through Stanford offices in Tupelo, Jackson and Memphis, Tenn.

Grant Thornton LLP, appointed by an Antiguan court to wind up SIBL, said all creditors and victims need to complete and submit a claim form if they wanted to receive distributions from the liquidators.

The firm said it hopes to release funds held in the U.K., Canada and Switzerland and proceeds from the sale of Stanford property in Antigua.

“Today we can’t say that either is imminent, but we continue pushing forward on both fronts as hard as we can to make distribution to depositor victims,” Grant Thornton liquidator Hugh Dickson said in an e-mailed statement.

Liquidators in Antigua and the U.S. are seeking control of Stanford’s assets to return money to his alleged victims, including those who bought worthless certificates of deposit from Stanford International Bank.

The empire’s president, R. Allen Stanford, goes on trial Monday in Houston, Texas, on criminal charges that he perpetrated the international fraud on investors. (Read daily trial coverage on DJournal.com/stanford_trial)

To file Stanford bank claim:

• www.sibliquidation.com/claims-administration