  But no one has ever been able to make a criminal case.  Texas
securities officials investigated, as did the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration and the FBI. But none found solid
evidence of a link between drug money and Stanford, who now
stands accused of running a multibillion-dollar fraud at his
offshore bank in Antigua and Houston-based brokerage firm.  In
the late 1990s, according to court documents, operatives of the
Juarez cartel began opening accounts at Stanford’s Antigua-based
bank in an effort to launder money amassed under one of Mexico’s
most vicious drug lords, Amado Carrillo Fuentes. Together, they
used Stanford International Bank to open 10 accounts and deposit
$3 million — a small sliver of the cartel’s fortunes but enough
to pique authorities’ interest.  Now, more than a decade later,
federal sources tell the Chronicle, any alleged Stanford
connection to drug cartels and their money could lie buried in
the paperwork gathered for the Security and Exchange
Commission’s civil inquiry.  Effort