Securities Law
FBI Agents Find Missing Billionaire Accused in $8B Fraud
Posted Feb 20, 2009 6:00 AM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
FBI agents served missing billionaire Robert Allen Stanford yesterday at the home of one of his relatives in Fredericksburg, Va.
Since the Securities and Exchange Commission charges against Stanford are civil in nature, he was not arrested, the New York Times reports. He was served with civil papers accusing him of misleading investors who bought $8 billion in certificates of deposit with improbable returns.
Federal prosecutors are investigating whether Stanford was running a Ponzi scheme, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.). Stanford’s businesses have been under investigation since 2006.
An unnamed official told the Times that Stanford was served after he and his girlfriend arrived at the Virginia home in a car. Stanford was said to be “extremely cordial and cooperative.”
The Wall Street Journal posted the SEC statement on Stanford’s arrest, which includes links to the SEC complaint and other court papers.
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Comments
Mike M.
Feb 20, 2009 6:33 AM CST
What’s a few billion amongst friends. I mean really…
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B. McLeod
Feb 21, 2009 2:40 PM CST
The press coverage has made it very clear that even after the Madoff debacle, the SEC was forced to action here only by a private attorney’s SOX “noisy withdrawal” (which threatened general media scrutiny) and had in fact been disregarding reports of wrongdoing by Mr. Stanford for approximately four years. SEC is part of the problem, and has been corrupted to the extent it needs to be razed to the very last stone, and replaced with a new oversight body that is not incompetent or on the take.
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