FBI find ‘fraudster’ Allen Stanford

Sir Allen Stanford, the tycoon at the centre of an alleged $9.2bn fraud who had gone missing for two days, has been run to ground by the FBI. He was discovered on Thursday in the Virginia town of Fredericksburg, sitting in the passenger seat of a car apparently owned by a girlfriend. He was served with legal papers detailing fraud charges against him. But he was not arrested because it remains – so far - a civil matter.

However, Stanford (pictured), who hit the headlines last year when he sponsored a $1m-a-man Twenty20 cricket match in the West Indies, was asked to surrender his passport. An FBI spokesman stressed that the billionaire was not a fugitive and that he was "very cooperative". "He wasn't hard to find, We said: 'Are you this guy?' He said: 'Yes', and we served the papers on him."

Stanford is known as plain ‘Mister Stanford’ in the States: his knighthood is a local one from Antigua, a reward for his contribution to the business success of the island where he holds citizenship. He had attempted to leave the US for Antigua on Wednesday but was foiled when his credit card was rejected by a private jet charter company at Houston airport.

The 58-year-old financier is accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the US financial regulator, of operating a fraud centered on the sale of certificates of deposit from his Antiguan affiliate, Stanford International Bank Ltd. It has also emerged that the FBI is examining criminal charges against him, including allegations that his Antigua-based bank was used as a money-laundering centre by drug cartels.

The inquiry calls into question the ultimate provenance of the $20m in banknotes that Stanford displayed in a transparent chest at Lord's cricket ground last summer, when he announced his controversial and short-lived entry into English sport.