Stanford Charged With "Fraud Of Shocking Magnitude"

Allen Stanford, the billionaire Texas banker, has been charged with orchestrating a fraudulent, multibillion dollar investment scheme, the SEC announced in a press release this morning.

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The SEC's complaint, filed in federal court in Dallas, alleges that acting through a network of SGC financial advisers, SIB has sold approximately $8 billion of so-called "certificates of deposit" to investors by promising improbable and unsubstantiated high interest rates. These rates were supposedly earned through SIB's unique investment strategy, which purportedly allowed the bank to achieve double-digit returns on its investments for the past 15 years.

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And according to the New York Times' examination of the complaint itself, the SEC acted after it subpoenaed Stanford and Davis for testimony and documents that would help account for $8 billion in assets, and received no response.