Federal investigatory sources indicate a Texas tycoon accused of an $8 billion investment fraud may have swindled the New York inventor of an alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
The sources say Allen Stanford-accused by the feds of running a "massive, ongoing fraud"-is bragging that he scammed Bernard Madoff out of millions of dollars "worth" of fake certificates of deposit in a Caribbean bank.
"So they think, compared to Madoff, that I'm just a small fry con man, eh? Well, I took that crooked bastard to the cleaners," Stanford asserted. In an e-mail response, Madoff called Stanford a "small fry con man" not worth commenting on. "Though I will say, just for the record, that some years back I beat the lying bastard out of $10 million in a fixed poker game."
The sources add that if the two adversaries go to prison, they will not be cellmates.
