Allen Who?

Given my taste for financial fraud, I admit I am coming a bit late to the story of Allen Stanford who seems to be the very model of watch-the-shell and watch-the-pea multijurisdictional banking (and perhaps a middleweight Bernie Madoff to boot). Maybe because it kind of snuck up sideways:

For anybody who's coming new to this story, it began with an article entitled "Duck Tales", which can be downloaded here, in Veneconomia magazine in Venezuela. The article essentially accused Stanford of being a fraud; it was picked up by Venezuelan blog Venepiramides on February 6, and had made it to Portfolio.com by the morning of Feburary 10. The following day, February 11, there was a big article at both BusinessWeek; by February 12, the rest of the mainstream media had cottoned on, if cautiously.

As it happens, I don't read Business Week but I should know that it is always a mistake to leave Felix Salmon unread. I suspect he is giving himself a bit of a pat on the back here and I say God bless, he deserves it (and so, of course, does God).