This dood had balls. And no one knows where he is right now.
CARACAS/ST.JOHN'S (Reuters) - Fraud probes into Texas billionaire Allen Stanford's far-flung financial empire extended through two continents on Thursday as Venezuela and Ecuador seized a bank and two companies hit by the widening scandal.
Five Latin American countries have now taken action against Stanford businesses, while Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is monitoring a possible UK link after media reports that Stanford's books were audited in Britain.
The whereabouts of the jet-setting 58-year-old tycoon, who has a Caribbean knighthood and luxury U.S. and Caribbean homes, is not known. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has accused him and two colleagues of "massive fraud".
U.S. federal agents raided Stanford Group offices in Miami, Houston and other U.S. cities earlier this week.
The fallout from the SEC charges against the flamboyant, mustachioed financier has rippled far beyond U.S. borders, prompting investigations from Houston to Antigua and Caracas.
The SEC accused Stanford in a civil complaint on Tuesday of fraudulently selling $8 billion in certificates of deposit with impossibly high interest rates from his Antiguan affiliate, Stanford International Bank Ltd (SIB).
The scandal, emerging hard on the heels of the alleged $50 billion fraud by Wall Street veteran Bernard Madoff, has again spooked international investors and sharply increased public distrust of investment schemes.
In Caracas, the government of socialist President Hugo Chavez took control of Stanford Bank Venezuela, one of the country's smallest commercial banks, to stem massive online withdrawals following the SEC fraud charges.
"The authorities were forced to take the decision to intervene and there will be an immediate sale (of the bank)," Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez told reporters.
Another Andean nation, Ecuador, announced it was seizing two local Stanford units -- a brokerage house and a fiduciary firm. "We will intervene to protect the interests of investors," Santiago Noboa, the state regulator of the stock exchange in Quito, told Reuters.
Mexico's banking regulator said it was investigating the local Stanford bank affiliate for possible violation of banking laws.
Peru's securities regulator suspended the operations of a local Stanford unit.
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE51H5IO20090219
