Brash Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford was indicted yesterday on charges his international banking empire was really just a Ponzi scheme built on lies, bluster and bribery.

The Justice Department announced charges against Stanford and six others who allegedly helped the tycoon run a US$7 billion swindle.

Among those charged were executives of Stanford Financial Group and a former Antiguan bank regulator who, prosecutors say, should have caught the fraud but instead took bribes to let the scheme continue.

'impressive criminal case'

Robert Khuzami, the enforcement director for the Securities and Exchange Commission, said investigators have built "an impressive criminal case from the rubble of this massive fraud".

If convicted of all charges in the 21-count indictment, Stanford could face as much as 250 years in prison, officials said.

Dick DeGuerin, Stanford's lawyer, said in a written statement that Stanford was "confident that a fair jury will find him not guilty of any criminal wrongdoing".

false claims

The indictment, unsealed Friday in Houston, charged Stanford and other executives at his firm falsely claimed to have grown US$1.2 billion in assets in 2001 to roughly US$8.5 billion by the end of 2008. The operation had roughly 30,000 investors, officials said.

Secretly, though, Stanford diverted more than US$1.6 billion in personal loans to himself, according to investigators.

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