Texas financier R. Allen Stanford was tracked down on Thursday to Virginia, where FBI agents served him with legal papers in a multibillion-dollar fraud case.
FBI agents, acting at the request of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), served Stanford court orders and other documents, the FBI and the SEC said.
Stanford is not under arrest and is not in custody.
In a civil complaint on Tuesday, the SEC accused Stanford, two other executives and three of his companies with committing an US$8 billion fraud that lured investors with promises of improbable and unsubstantiated high returns on certificates of deposit and other investments. It’s not clear how much of the US$8 billion was lost and how much investors might recover.
Until regulators received help on Thursday from the FBI, the SEC had not been able to find Stanford.
A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the billionaire was served on Thursday afternoon by an agent who had staked out a location in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
The agent spotted Stanford around 1:45pm in a car driven by Stanford’s girlfriend. The agent spoke to Stanford, who was riding in the passenger side, the official said. The agent handed Stanford the SEC complaint, a federal court order freezing Stanford’s assets and another order naming a receiver.
Stanford told the agent he understood and would make arrangements to surrender his passport, the official said.
Stanford has not been charged with any crime, though federal agents continue to investigate the case.
The fallout from the fraud case is already rattling around the global financial system.
Venezuela on Thursday seized a failed bank controlled by Stanford after a run on deposits there, while clients were prevented from withdrawing their money from Stanford International Bank and its affiliates in a half-dozen other countries.
Stanford’s father, James, 81, told reporters in Mexia, Texas, on Thursday that he hoped the allegations aren’t true.
“I have no earthly knowledge of it,” said the elder Stanford, listed as chairman emeritus and a director for Stanford Financial Group. “I would be totally surprised if there would be truth to it. And disappointed, heartbroken.”
He said he would tell his son to “Do the right thing.”
Stanford, 58, owns a home in the US Virgin Islands and operates businesses from Houston, Texas, to Miami, Florida, and Switzerland to Antigua, where he holds citizenship and the government knighted him in 2006 in recognition of his economic influence and charity work.
A US federal judge appointed a receiver to identify and protect Stanford’s assets worldwide, including about US$8 billion managed by the Antigua-based Stanford International Bank, which has affiliates in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.
Also frozen were assets of Houston-based Stanford Capital Management and Stanford Group Co, which has 29 brokerage offices in the US.
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary