American authorities have been suspicious of Allen Stanford's financial dealings for 15 years, it was claimed today.
As investigators continued to hunt Mr Stanford and the $50 billion of assets connected to him, a financial expert said that the Texan had been on "everybody’s radar" for more than a decade.
The claim, made by the journalist and author Jeffrey Robinson, came as a link was made for the first time between the cricket impresario and a feared Mexican drugs cartel....
As the charges against him became clear yesterday, panicked investors in the Caribbean and Latin America rushed to withdraw their savings from banks linked to his financial empire. Baldwin Spencer, the Prime Minister of Antigua, where he was the island's largest employer, said the ramifications for the island in terms of investment and jobs could be "catastrophic".
Speaking this morning Mr Robinson said that the Stanford case could have "huge ramifications" for the world of offshore banking and could be as significant as the Bernard Madoff scandal.
"I know, personally - because I have discussed it with them - a number of law enforcement agencies in the United States, plus a number of prosecutors who have been looking at Mr Stanford for the past 15 years," he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. "He has been on everybody’s radar for a number of things."
Some people involved in the offshore industry would be keen for Mr Stanford to remain silent about his Antiguan-based banking empire, he added.
"What’s going to happen now is they will ask to talk to him. If he doesn’t appear, I suspect an arrest warrant will be issued by the FBI on criminal charges," he said.
"If he does, he’s got a real problem because he knows an awful lot. And I would suspect there are a number of people, very heavyweight people, throughout the offshore world and in other jurisdictions who really don’t want to be associated with Mr Stanford and are not going to be pleased if he talks. So this man has a very, very serious problem."
