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.

Court papers charge Stanford and top executives orchestrated the massive fraud by advising clients to buy certificates of deposit from the Antigua-based Stanford International Bank.

"This case is a typical Ponzi scheme, robbing Peter to pay Paul," said Gregory Campbell of the US Postal Inspection Service.

Authorities say they are investigating 100 other possible Ponzi schemes, although none on the scale of the Stanford or Madoff cases.

At his zenith, Stanford was a larger-than-life figure in Antigua. His enterprises there include a newspaper, two restaurants, a development company and the ornately landscaped Stanford cricket grounds, where he shook up the staid world of professional cricket last year by bankrolling the purse in a US$20 million winner-take-all match.

surrendered thursday

DeGuerin said Stanford surrendered Thursday afternoon "to some FBI agents who were hiding out in black SUVs outside the residence where he was staying in Virginia".

"He walked out and asked if they had a warrant," DeGuerin said. He said Stanford told them to arrest him if they had a warrant and said if they didn't, he would go back to Houston Friday to turn himself in.