"He treated his victims like roadkill": Allen Stanford is jailed for 110 YEARS for £4.5 billion fraud

He sold investors worthless certificates of deposit from his Caribbean bank in a Ponzi scheme scam

Jailed: Stanford masterminded one of the world’s biggest investment frauds

Financier Allen Stanford was jailed for 110 years yesterday for masterminding one of the world’s biggest investment frauds.

The former billionaire, 62, was sentenced in Houston, Texas, following his conviction in March on charges of fleecing more than £4.5billion.

He sold investors worthless certificates of deposit from his Caribbean bank in a Ponzi scheme scam.

He spent the proceeds on funding an extravagant lifestyle, owning yachts and mansions in Florida and the West Indies.

The court heard how he used private jets to fly a tailor from New York to Antigua to take his measurements and to transport Koi carp for his pond.

In 2008 Stanford did a deal with English cricketers for a $1million-a-man, winner-takes-all Twenty20 contest between them and a select team of Stanford Superstars in his adopted home, Antigua.

England had been due to play four further lucrative matches in the Caribbean. But in February 2009 cricket chiefs severed all links with Stanford a day after FBI agents tracked him down.

He had denied committing fraud and insisted: "I am not a thief".

Prosecutor William Stellmach told the court: "This is a man utterly without remorse. He treated his victims like roadkill."

Stanford, who has been in custody for the past three years, was expecting to spend the rest of his life behind bars, according to his mother, Sammi.

"I didn't expect anything different," she was reported as saying.