Texas billionaire Allen Stanford, accused of defrauding investors around the globe, stayed out of sight on Friday as governments and clients counted the cost of his alleged $8 billion securities scam. As customers from Houston to Caracas desperately sought to recoup their investments, Stanford's whereabouts were a mystery again even after FBI agents served the 58-year-old financier with a formal fraud complaint on Thursday, according to Reuters. Stanford, previously a publicity-seeking sports tycoon with a knighthood bestowed by the tiny Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda, has been lying low since the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged him, two colleagues and three of his companies with "massive, ongoing fraud." The scandal, emerging hard on the heels of allegations that Wall Street veteran Bernard Madoff carried out a $50 billion fraud, has spooked international investors and prompted investigations in Latin America and Europe as well as in the United States.
