R. Allen Stanford indicted, surrenders

R. Allen Stanford indicted, surrenders

R. Allen Stanford, the Texas billionaire accused of running a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, surrendered to the F.B.I. on Thursday night. A grand jury returned a sealed indictment against him earlier in the day, his lawyer said.

The lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, said that he and Mr. Stanford had not yet read the indictment but that his client was innocent.

In February, the Securities and Exchange Commission shut down Mr. Stanford’s financial operations, while filing a civil suit accusing him and two other senior executives of committing a fraud it characterized as a “massive Ponzi scheme.”

The suspected fraud involved billions of dollars of certificates of deposit issued by Stanford International Bank, located on the Caribbean island of Antigua. The instruments paid unusually high returns and were marketed around the world, particularly in the United States and Latin America.

NYTimes
6/18/9