Peru investigates Stanford for money laundering

LIMA (Reuters) - Peru has started an investigation to see if the local unit of Stanford Financial Group engaged in money laundering, the country's lead public prosecutor for such crimes said in an interview on Friday.

Jorge Luis Caldas told Reuters that Peru's investigation would also look into whether the company sold high-yield certificates of deposit without a license.

The CDs are at the core of what U.S. authorities have called an $8 billion "massive" fraud allegedly carried out by Texas billionaire Allen Stanford and several of his companies.

Caldas disclosed the inquiry a day after Peru's securities regulator suspended the operations of the local Stanford office for 30 days.

"We are going to investigate to verify if, in effect, there was money laundering," Caldas said.

ABC News reported the U.S. FBI and other agencies have looked into whether Stanford was involved in laundering drug money from Mexico's drug cartel.

Peru is the world's No. 2 cocaine producer after Colombia, and officials say Colombian and Mexican cartels work in Peru.

Stanford, which operates as a broker-dealer in Lima, has net assets of 6.8 million soles ($2.1 million) in Peru, according to securities regulator Conasev.

It also has units in Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela, among other Latin American countries.

On Wednesday, nervous clients lined up at Stanford's office in Lima, hoping to get their money back.

Caldas said the CDs from the bank in Antigua may have been offered to Peruvians.

"The Peru office has apparently said it did not offer these types of products, but it's also known that the minimum investment for a CD was $100,000."

(Reporting by Teresa Cespedes; writing by Terry Wade; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)