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Fugitive Financier Has $8B Headstart

SEC has slim chance of finding Stanford, missing stash

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Feb 18, 2009 1:48 AM CST

(Newser) – Financier Robert Allen Stanford is now a fugitive and SEC officials don't look any likelier to get their man than his investors do to get their money back, Felix Salmon writes in Portfolio. Regulators have been sniffing around his operations for long enough to ensure he's got a contingency plan already in action, probably involving that missing $8 billion and one of his multiple private jets, Salmon notes.

Stanford has likely stashed his cash in one or several of his banking operations in many jurisdictions beyond the arm of US law. The spotlight is currently on Antigua, Salmon notes, but it's more likely Stanford is preparing for a life of luxury somewhere with an "ask-no-questions private-banking industry and a vague-to-nonexistent extradition treaty with the US."

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Sir R. Allen Stanford waves at Lords Cricket Ground in London last year. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File)

Sir R. Allen Stanford poses for photos at the Lords Cricket Ground in London last year. Federal regulators yesterday charged Stanford with a "massive fraud." (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, file)

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Allen Stanford might be a moustachioed crook, but he's not stupid. There's still a good chance that he could live out the rest of his life in sybaritic luxury, even as his investors lose substantially everything. - Felix Salmon in Portfolio

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Fugitive Financier Has $8B Headstart