Texan financier Stanford was 'US government informer'

New York, May 11 (ANI): Texan financier and cricket promoter Sir Allen Stanford, who has been accused of a eight billion dollar bank fraud, is known to have worked as a US government informer, a BBC report claims. According to The Telegraph, a Panorama investigation has suggested that Sir Allen was shielded from an earlier inquiry into his activities because he co-operated with a US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) attempt to track money laundering by Latin American drug cartels.

US officials closed down his banking activities in February, alleging a vast fraud centered on his Antigua-based offshore bank. Sir Allen, 59, previously most famous as the sponsor of the Twenty20 cricket tournament, has vowed to clear his name.

Panorama claimed some US officials were aware of Sir Allen's cartel links as long ago as 1990.

It reported that Stanford paid a 3.1 million dollar cheque to the DEA in 1999 after that sum was invested in his bank by another Mexican drug gang, the Juarez cartel of Amada Carillo Fuentes.

According to Panorama, whose investigation will air on Monday, Stanford was initially investigated by the SEC over suspicions he was running a Ponzi scheme in the summer of 2006, but the inquiry was over by the winter of that year.

The BBC claims the decision to close the investigation followed a request by another government agency. (ANI)