First there was Bernie Maddoff and HSBC. Now there is Allen Stanford and HSBC. Financial authorities in the Caribbean seized control of Allen Stanford’s key banking operations today as a global investigation deepened into allegations of an $8 billion fraud at the heart of the billionaire entrepreneur’s business empire. The SEC wants to talk to him too.

The scandal has also spread to HSBC which told the Guardian it had been contacted by regulators in Panama with queries about its role as a go-between for Stanford’s banks.

“We have been contacted by regulators in Panama and we are, of course, fully co-operating with them,” said an HSBC spokesman. HSBC is understood to have been one of several “correspondence banks” which handled certain bank transfers on behalf of Stanford entities.

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