In a quiet, terraced suburban street in Enfield, an unremarkable North London suburb sandwiched between the capital's two main orbital roads, Flat 21a contains the current headquarters of CAS Hewlett, the accountancy firm that for almost the past decade has audited the books of Stanford International Bank (SIB) of Antigua.
Until January, CAS Hewlett was run from Antigua by Charlesworth "Shelly" Hewlett. Mr Hewlett died last month, however, and control of his accountancy business passed to his daughter, who lives in Enfield.
SIB, meanwhile, emerged on Tuesday at the centre of what the US Securities and Exchange Commission has called a "massive and ongoing" financial fraud.
On Tuesday lunchtime, US marshals raided the offices of the Stanford Financial Group in Houston - the organisation of which SIB is a part.
In fact, Stanford Financial, which claims to have more than $50bn of assets under management, comprises a vast network of interlinked but distinct financial companies spanning the Americas.
From Caracas to Baton Rouge, Stanford Financial has trusts and banks, brokerages and funds, all of which seem to have only one thing in common: Sir Allen Stanford as their owner.
Sir Allen himself is probably better known to most as the "saviour of West Indian cricket", into which he poured millions of his own money.
At one point, he was the soon-to-be-saviour of the English game, before an arrival at Lord's cricket ground in a gold-plated helicopter sent murmurs of disapproval through the cricketing establishment.
The Texan billionaire's use of the honorific "Sir" also raised eyebrows.
He was not knighted by the Queen but by the governor-general of Antigua, albeit at a ceremony with Prince Edward in attendance.
SIB - the $8.5bn bank at the core of Stanford Financial's troubles - has been the focal point of controversy for some weeks now.
Concerns were sparked after Alex Dalmady, a Venezuela-based analyst, compiled figures on SIB's investment performance from the bank's published annual and half-yearly reports that show consistent market-beating returns.
Mr Dalmady questioned the bank's ability to ride out market volatility because SIB was purely in the business of trading stocks and bonds and did not make loans.
Nor did SIB take depositors' money like a normal bank.
Instead, clients deposited funds by purchasing certificates of deposit - fixed-term investments that cannot be withdrawn suddenly. Regulatory filings show about $3.5bn SIB certificates of deposit were sold in the US alone.
Documents show that SIB did not, in fact, invest in the highly liquid assets it claimed to.
Instead, SIB was involved in illiquid real-estate and private equity deals, some of which even reinvested their money as deposits in SIB.
It appears that many of the businesses SIB invested in - some of which have extensive connections to other Stanford Financial organisations - have been troubled for some time.
Superior Galleries, a Beverly Hills coin dealership, for example, made a $2m bullion shipment to SIB in lieu of payment on a $10m loan.
Even the Stanford Financial organisation's claim to manage about $50bn of assets in total is being hotly disputed.
The most recent reports available show Stanford Financial Company, a registered broker and asset management business, has only around $147m of assets.
Filings from 2007 disclose that its asset management operations were only sourcing clients for Pershing and Bear Stearns - which paid Stanford Group Company a commission for acting as an "introductory broker".
The PR machine that papered over such cracks, was formidable.
The Stanford companies, including SIB, marketed themselves to investors through a slick network of websites and even a thick, glossy corporate magazine - the Eagle - regularly distributed to clients.
As Sir Allen's involvement in cricket as well as his Antiguan knighthood shows, the businessman was an astute networker, most at ease being the billionaire tycoon in the company of politicians.
In the Caribbean, Sir Allen was a powerful patron of local politicians - he tried to be in Washington too. Stanford Financial ran an extensive lobbying and political research orgainisation in the US capital.
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