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.
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 —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat