Texas tycoon Allen Stanford spent more than 20 years charming investors, who handed him billions of dollars they had spent their lives accumulating through hard work and saving.

A FORENSIC psychologist yesterday testified that jailed Texas financier R Allen Stanford is mentally stable and competent to be tried next month on charges he deceived investors out of $7 billion (€5.3bn) in a massive Ponzi scheme.

The wife of former Enron finance chief Andrew Fastow was jailed for a year today for helping her husband hide ill-gotten income from some of his myriad financial schemes.