As more corporate fraud is uncovered in the Caribbean, is it too much to ask that executives play fair with our money?

A few weeks ago on this blog, I made reference to Warren Buffet’s comment about how the receding tide reveals those swimming with no trunks on. Now the undertow has exposed another skinny-dipper off the beaches of Antigua.

The SEC investigation into the business empire of US sports mogul Sir Allen Stanford sowed panic in the Caribbean and Latin America this week as governments and investors scrambled to uncover the extent of an alleged $9 billion fraud. As news of the federal investigation into Stanford’s activities broke, customers staged a run on banks connected to the financier.

In the Caribbean, this fraud news is splashed all over the front pages. Stanford’s money was the bedrock of the economy in places such as Antigua, where he is the island’s biggest investor and private employer. Up to 90,000 people depend on Stanford and his investments for their livelihoods, and the impact on the local economy could be devastating. For the thousands who have money tied up with the tycoon’s business empire, this is big news.

Yet in the US, Stanford is just another executive in the dock, one of a seemingly endless procession of CEO defendants making their way across the financial pages. It’s not even headline news. Are we becoming desensitized to corporate wrongdoing? And since when did bending the rules of the game become so commonplace in financial services?

The UK has a different perspective again. There, the story is being reported largely in the sports pages: a tale of how the English cricket authorities were seduced by a brash Texan billionaire bearing bundles of greenbacks and the promise of further lucrative returns.

Maybe this is why the Brits are so taken with the story: its ties to the world of cricket – shorthand across the world for fair play and moral fortitude – is a reminder that such behavior is unacceptable. Maybe its time we demanded better conduct from our corporate leaders. Anything else just isn’t cricket.