Allen Stanford, the once high-flying Texas billionaire with a Caribbean knighthood and a penchant for publicity and cricket, has been brought down to earth with a thud after surrendering to the FBI.
The founder and chairman of Stanford Group once credited his grandfather with giving him “the inspiration to dream” and “an unwavering desire to build a business that is second to none”. Since February, that business has all but evaporated.
Yesterday, the flamboyant 59-year-old financier turned himself in to the FBI to face criminal charges, four months after US regulators accused him and three of his companies of a "massive ongoing fraud."
The US Securities and Exchange Commission says Mr Stanford and two fellow executives fraudulently sold $8 billion in high-yield certificates of deposit issued by Stanford International Bank Ltd in Antigua.
In those civil charges, the SEC said the bank reported "improbable" high returns.
Many burned investors have been clamoring for criminal charges, accusing Stanford of being cut from the same mold as Bernard Madoff, who admitted in March to orchestrating the biggest financial swindle in Wall Street history.
The criminal charges and the SEC's revelations of Stanford's empire - stretching from the Caribbean island of Antigua to Houston, Miami and Caracas - complete the picture of a finance king who lost his Midas touch along the way.
In an April interview with Reuters, Stanford said he did not run a Ponzi scheme as US regulators alleged. He asserted, in what may be a preview of his defense, that his companies were well-run until the government seized them in February.
Just last year, the man known as “Sir Allen” in Antigua since being knighted there in 2006 was providing fodder for British tabloids by flying in by helicopter to bankroll international cricket matches in a blaze of publicity. Since February, he has been largely out of sight.
Reuters