Missing financier Stanford is found

MISSING FINANCIER and alleged fraudster Allen Stanford has been found in the US, the FBI said last night.

The agency, on behalf of regulators, delivered legal papers on the billionaire after tracing him to Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Stanford faces charges relating to frauds totalling $9.2 billion.

The complaint was made by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in a court in Dallas on Tuesday. But they were unable to serve papers to Stanford in person after it emerged that they were unaware of his whereabouts.

The papers served on him yesterday relate to civil court proceedings and as such he has not been placed under arrest.

But the tycoon has had his assets frozen and been placed under a temporary restraining order as part of the SEC complaint.

Regulators accuse the tycoon of fraud “of a shocking magnitude” relating to an $8 billion certificate of deposit (CD) scheme and a separate $1.2 billion investment vehicle. It follows a probe into Stanford and his firms, Stanford International Bank (SIB), Stanford Group Company and Stanford Capitol Management.

Stanford’s apparent two-day disappearance after the court documents were failed risked further embarrassment for the SEC.

The regulator has been heavily criticised over its role in the $50 million dollar fraud allegedly committed by Bernard Madoff.

Likewise with Stanford, regulators have been accused of being slow to act.

James Cox, professor of corporate and securities law at Duke University in North Carolina, said: “It looks like deja vu all over again – where were the regulators?”

He added: “It is long overdue for the SEC to carry out a post-mortem on how they conduct their investigations.

“The problems we keep getting are the results of failures on two levels. Firstly we do not have the right people to carry out the investigations – we need people experienced not just in financial advice but very sophisticated products.

“And secondly we need to rethink the template on what goes on in an investigation.”