Texas financier Allen Stanford and two co-defendants have surrendered their passports, a spokesman for the US Securities and Exchange Commission said today.
The spokesman, Kevin Callahan, did not specify when or where Stanford and the others gave up their passports.
"I can confirm that all three defendants in our case have surrendered their passports," he said in an e-mailed reply to Reuters.
The SEC has accused Mr Stanford (58) of defrauding 50,000 customers around the world in a multibillion-dollar investment scheme.
Acting at the SEC's request, FBI agents served Stanford court orders and other documents yesterday in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Mr Stanford is not under arrest and his whereabouts remained unclear.
The SEC filed civil charges in Dallas on Tuesday against Stanford and two colleagues, as well as Mr Stanford International Bank Ltd, Stanford Group Co and Stanford Capital Management LLC. The agency accuses them of a "massive, ongoing fraud."
Until regulators got help yesterday from the FBI, the SEC had failed to find Mr Stanford. His whereabouts had been the subject of intense speculation since he failed to respond to an SEC subpoena to answer questions about his company's operations.
Reuters