At small Antigua accounting firm: Who's Stanford?

ST. JOHN'S, Antigua (Reuters) - C.A.S. Hewlett & Co, the small Antiguan firm that Texas billionaire Allen Stanford identified as the auditors of his offshore bank, said on Thursday it had no information about ties to the tycoon accused of fraud.

St. John's-based Hewlett has been identified by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as the auditors of Stanford's $8 billion offshore bank, but executives there provided little indication they even knew who Stanford was.

The current manager, Eugene Perry, at C.A.S. Hewlett in the Antiguan capital, said Thursday the firm's former chief executive, Charlesworth "Shelley" Hewlett, is the only person with possible knowledge of a relationship to Stanford.

But getting any information from Shelley Hewlett is not likely. He died January 1 at age 73.

Perry said he never met Stanford in his 10 years working at the firm. He spoke with a Reuters reporter in the late Hewlett's personal office and telephoned a woman he identified as the company's principal.

"We are not privy to any information about any relationship with Stanford," said the woman, who would only identify herself as Celia. Asked if she was aware of any files at the firm associated with Stanford, she said she was not.

Hewlett's daughter, named Celia, took over responsibility for the accounting firm from London after her father died. It couldn't be determined if the Celia interviewed by telephone was the late Hewlett's daughter.

On Tuesday, the SEC accused Stanford, a brash, 58-year-old financier and sports entrepreneur, of operating an $8 billion fraud centered on the sale of high-yielding certificates of deposit offered by Stanford International Bank Ltd (SIB), his Antiguan affiliate.

The interest in Stanford has extended across the Atlantic.

Britain's Serious Fraud Office said Thursday it was monitoring a possible link between the accounting firm and Stanford.

"It's a situation where there is the possibility there may be a U.K. link, and so we are monitoring the situation," a spokesman for the SFO said.

"It's not the case that we have launched investigators at it. We are making contact and liaising with other authorities," the spokesman added.

C.A.S. Hewlett has offices at several London addresses, but the phone numbers were either disconnected, or rang unanswered.

Two people with neighboring businesses in Enfield, a residential suburb north of London, told Reuters that C.A.S. Hewlett had had a small office in the building on Southbury Road, but that the employees left about four years ago.

ANYBODY HOME?

The SEC said in its court complaint that it had tried several times to contact C.A.S. Hewlett during its investigation, but "no one ever answered the phone."

SIB'S midyear report, released in June, identified C.A.S. Hewlett as its auditors. The SEC also listed the firm as Stanford's auditor.

But the 10 workers in the Hewlett office in a quiet, largely residential neighborhood in the capital, seemed an unlikely operation to manage books for an $8 billion enterprise.

During two visits over two days by Reuters reporters, no one staffed a reception desk in the aquamarine building. On one visit to the reception area that lasted nearly two hours, there was no senior manager in the building. The occasional sound of reggae music wafted from inside the office.

C.A.S. Hewlett is listed on the British Commonwealth's website as a "financial services partner" in Antigua with an offshore client portfolio that includes banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions and intermediaries.

Charlesworth Hewlett was born in 1936, according to the website, and qualified as an accountant in 1970 after attending South West London College. He also is said to have served in the Britain's Royal Air Force and earned a medal for active service in Cyprus.

(Additional reporting by Catherine Bosley and Luke Baker; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)