Stanford indicted for running alleged US$7 billion fraud scheme

Texan billionaire R. Allen Stanford was indicted Friday on charges his international banking empire was really just a Ponzi scheme built on lies, bluster, and bribery, according to a report by the Associated Press.



The Justice Department announced charges against Stanford and six others who allegedly help the tycoon run a US$7 billion swindle.



Among those charged were executives of Stanford Financial Group and a former Antiguan bank regulator whom prosecutors say should have caught the fraud but instead took bribes to let the scheme continue.



Robert Khuzami, the enforcement director for the Securities and Exchange Commission, said investigators have built \"an impressive criminal case from the rubble of this massive fraud.\"



If convicted of all charges in the 21-count indictment, Stanford could face as much as 250 years in prison, officials said.



Dick DeGuerin, Stanford\'s lawyer, said in a written statement that Stanford was \"confident that a fair jury will find him not guilty of any criminal wrongdoing.\"



The indictment unsealed Friday in Houston charged Stanford and other executives at his firm falsely claimed to have grown US$1.2 billion in assets in 2001 to roughly US$8.5 billion by the end of 2008. The operation had roughly 30,000 investors, officials said.



Secretly Stanford diverted more than US$1.6 billion in personal loans to himself, according to investigators.



\"This case is a typical Ponzi scheme, robbing Peter to pay Paul,\" said Gregory Campbell of the United States Postal Inspection Service.



Authorities say they are investigating 100 other possible Ponzi schemes, although none on the scale of the Stanford or Bernard Madoff cases.



\"We will find you, we will stop you, and we will make you pay for your crime,\" said Campbell.