No Sign Of Stanford Plane In Drugs Link -Mexico

There is no criminal investigation in Mexico into Stanford, who was found by the FBI in Virginia and served with court papers.

Mexico's attorney general's office said on Thursday it had not seized a private plane registered to Allen Stanford, after media reported an aircraft belonging to the Texas billionaire accused of massive fraud was detained in a U.S. drug money laundering probe.

There is no criminal investigation in Mexico into Stanford, who was found by the FBI in Virginia and served with court papers accusing him of an $8 billion fraud, said Octavio Campos, a spokesman for the attorney general's office.

"There are no records of planes registered in his name," Campos, told Reuters.

Citing unnamed U.S. officials, ABC News earlier reported that Mexican authorities had detained one of Stanford's private planes, finding checks inside allegedly connected to the Gulf cartel, Mexico's most violent drug gang.

Campos said no plane in Stanford's name was seized in Mexico although investigators were still checking whether any other aircraft at all linked to the billionaire or his companies had been impounded.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has accused Stanford and two Stanford Group Co executives of fraud, selling $8 billion in certificates of deposit that offered impossibly high returns.

Banking regulators across Latin America are investigating local units of Stanford's bank and people are scrambling to rescue their savings as fallout from U.S. fraud charges against the tycoon spread from the United States and the Caribbean to Latin America and Europe.