Stanford, the international man of mystery from Mexia

BBC:

Standing at 6ft 4in tall, broad-shouldered Texan billionaire Sir Allen Stanford cuts an imposing figure.

And the wealth he has built since he started in property in Houston in the 1980s has seen him acquire an international profile.

He has rubbed shoulders with some of the world's most prominent business people, politicians and sports stars.

Sir Allen, a 58-year-old father of six, is 205th on America's rich list, with a $2.2bn (£1.5bn) fortune, according to the Forbes 400 listing of American's wealthiest individuals.

He is a fifth-generation Texan who controls a global wealth management company, the Stanford Financial Group, which claims clients from 140 countries and has assets of $50bn (£35bn) under management.

The Stanford empire started during the Great Depression in 1932 when his grandfather Lodis founded the first company in the small Texas town of Mexia.

After making his first fortune in property, Sir Allen began expanding the family firm.

One of the companies and divisions under the Stanford umbrella is the Stanford International Bank, based in Antigua, which is at the centre of the current fraud allegations.

His company website also claims that "for more than 20 years, Sir Allen has been one of the world's leading investors in developing economies".

Among the recent schemes he launched was a $2bn investment fund earmarked for upscale development projects in the Caribbean, the website says.

Sir Allen, who is separated from his wife Susan, lives in St Croix in the US Virgin Islands. He holds citizenship for Antigua and Barbuda, where he is the largest employer after the government.

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There is an old joke about Mexia. A guy asks a waitress how you pronounce the name of this place. She very slowly says Dairy Queen. Mexia uses the Spanish pronunciation of "x" which sounds like an English 'h." So it would be Mahayia, phonetically. I can say with some assurance that there are no other billionaires from Mexia.

Stanford is doing himself no favor by disappearing. It makes it appear that he has much to hide. Perhaps he does, but hiding want make the problems go away and it will effect his credibility when he eventually has to say something or have his lawyers say something.

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