Robert Allen Stanford: $8 billion Investment Fraud, Texas Offices Raided

Allen Stanford, in the deep end, another financial collapse.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission accused Texan billionaire Robert Stanford of "massive ongoing fraud" in yet another outrageously huge financial scandal to rock the western world as the global economy tanks to levels not seen in generations.

In the complaint, filed in Federal District Court in Dallas, the S.E.C. accused Mr. Stanford and two associates — James M. Davis, a director and chief financial officer of Stanford Group and the Antigua-based bank affiliate, and Laura Pendergest-Holt, the chief investment officer of both organizations — with misrepresenting the safety and liquidity of the uninsured CDs, The New York Times reported online.

Both the bank, which claims $8.5 billion in assets and 30,000 clients in 131 countries, and the brokerage unit, which operates about 30 offices in the United States, were named in the S.E.C. suit. Stanford Financial asserts that it advises about $50 billion in assets.

FBI officers converged on the Standford Financial offices in Houston, Texas. Some $8 billion in assets is apparently wrapped up in a Caribbean bank in Antigua, where R Allen Stanford lives.

Via: Bloomberg and New York Times