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.
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
‘WORLD’S LOSS’: Taiwan’s exclusion robs the world of the benefits it could get from one of the foremost practitioners of disease prevention and public health, Minister Chiu said Taiwan should be allowed to join the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an irreplaceable contributor to global health and disease prevention efforts, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. He made the comment at a news conference in Taipei, hours before a Taiwanese delegation was to depart for Geneva, Switzerland, seeking to meet with foreign representatives for a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the WHA, the WHO’s annual decisionmaking meeting, which would be held from Monday next week to May 27. As of yesterday, Taiwan had yet to receive an invitation. Taiwan has much to offer to the international community’s
CAUSE AND EFFECT: China’s policies prompted the US to increase its presence in the Indo-Pacific, and Beijing should consider if this outcome is in its best interests, Lai said China has been escalating its military and political pressure on Taiwan for many years, but should reflect on this strategy and think about what is really in its best interest, President William Lai (賴清德) said. Lai made the remark in a YouTube interview with Mindi World News that was broadcast on Saturday, ahead of the first anniversary of his presidential inauguration tomorrow. The US has clearly stated that China is its biggest challenge and threat, with US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth repeatedly saying that the US should increase its forces in the Indo-Pacific region
ALL TOGETHER: Only by including Taiwan can the WHA fully exemplify its commitment to ‘One World for Health,’ the representative offices of eight nations in Taiwan said The representative offices in Taiwan of eight nations yesterday issued a joint statement reiterating their support for Taiwan’s meaningful engagement with the WHO and for Taipei’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA). The joint statement came as Taiwan has not received an invitation to this year’s WHA, which started yesterday and runs until Tuesday next week. This year’s meeting of the decisionmaking body of the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, would be the ninth consecutive year Taiwan has been excluded. The eight offices, which reaffirmed their support for Taiwan, are the British Office Taipei, the Australian Office Taipei, the
RSS