Vanity Fair

July 17, 2009

Vanity Fair article: Kroll defended reputation of ponzi schemer...

Allen Stanford arrives by helicopter at London’s Lord’s cricket field in June 2008 to announce the Stanford Super Series. Later, in Antigua, his own team of players, the Stanford Superstars, defeated England for the largest prize in the sport’s history, $20 million, supplied by Stanford himself. By Lefteris Pitarakis/A.P. Images.

Pirate of the Caribbean With little more than laserlike ambition and a brash Texas charm, Allen Stanford built an $8 billion Caribbean banking empire, exposed in February as perhaps the second-largest Ponzi scheme (after Madoff’s) in history. How did a bankrupt Waco health-club owner vault onto the Forbes Four Hundred, while the S.E.C., the F.B.I., and others mounted investigation after investigation of his shadowy business? From Stanford Financial’s Antiguan headquarters, the author follows Stanford’s improbable trail, complete with multiple families, a moated Miami mansion, and a passion for cricket.

By BRYAN BURROUGH July 2009