Feds Snatch Stanford; Insider Says Boca Office Was "Legit"

allenstanford.com

R. Allen Stanford

This Stanford Group case keeps getting uglier. Stanford employees gave over $31, 000 to Barack Obama's presidential campaign and over $28,000 to Republican candidate Sen. John McCain.

The only good news: FBI agents found alleged $8 billion fraudster Allen Stanford in Virginia yesterday and he turned in his U.S. passport.

This morning, the New York Post quotes an insider who says that while Stanford's Miami office had the looks of a boiler room, the office in Boca was staffed by "40 hard-working and apparently totally legit analysts."

But perhaps the most colorful report comes from The Times (UK), not just because it gives due credit to Weston financial analyst Alex Dalmady for breaking the case wide open but because it tells of how Stanford, a cricket enthusiast, bankrolled the game in Antigua only to have the opening ceremony marred by salacious allegations.

After transforming West Indies cricket with his financial largesse (Stanford) lured England to the Caribbean with the offer of a million-dollar-a-player winners-take-all game against his All Stars last October.

He unveiled the plans in suitably flamboyant style by arriving by helicopter at Lord's. The competition was a publicity disaster with Mr Stanford astounding the cricket world when he was accused of being too familiar with the pregnant wife of the England cricketer Matt Prior and the girlfriend of his team-mate, Alastair Cook.

After the jump, Reuters video of a bank run by Caribbean investors spooked by the allegations against Stanford.