Investigators in the Sir Allen Stanford case are grappling with a business network characterised by its wide scope, complexity and the lack of information on the public record about how much money it has and what exactly it does with it.

Stanford Financial Group – the collective name used for Sir Allen’s companies – is more of a concept than a classic holding company at the top of an international conglomerate. His businesses, which are concentrated in the southern US, the Caribbean and Latin America, are linked loosely – if crucially – by their common ownership. In marketing terms, the group looks like a kind of McDonald’s of finance, selling the Stanford brand to investors from Quito to St Croix.