My colleague, a Jamaican lawyer, and I, had been reviewing a document in which Robert (R) Allen Stanford wanted to be thenceforth represented or referred to by his initials throughout the document. "Why would someone want to be known as RAS?" my colleague asked. "Maybe he doesn't know Jamaican?" I responded.

I first met RAS when he was plain Mr Stanford or, as owner of an airline, 'plane' Mr Stanford, in Jamaica, on the day the Cricket World Cup was launched in Trelawny. Stanford and his entourage were there for a meeting on his proposed 20/20 series, the domestic version, as well as the international winner-take-all match featuring 'his' superstars.

On the other side of the table were the International Cricket Council (ICC), which had told Stanford that he needed to get permission from the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), to hold his events, either domestic or international, and the WICB, represented by Ken Gordon.

The ICC team comprised Percy Sonn, from South Africa, who was then the president, and Malcolm Speed, the chief executive officer. Sonn, a street fighter for the African National Congress during the apartheid era, was not one to mince words and he told RAS bluntly where he could put his money. "Cricket is not for sale!" he declared. Shell-shocked and dazed by the Sonn barrage, Stanford asked bemusedly afterwards, "Who is that guy?" Meanwhile, Sonn questioned, "Who does he think he is?"

Rebel league

Interestingly, Stanford kept insisting that he was not in cricket for the money; he just wanted to have fun. But there was no fun in the Sonn who was a pain in the RAS. Sonn warned RAS that if he started a rebel league, he and his players would be on the outside of world cricket, with no hope of looking in.

Now RAS faces the prospect of being on the inside of a penitentiary looking out - not something that you would associate with a man with several private jets, many homes, yachts and is listed as No. 62 in the list of the world's richest men, with a personal fortune of over US$2 billion.

Negotiating

It is interesting that his star has plummeted just like his airline Caribbean Star. RAS had started the airline thinking that with the onset of competition, LIAT would just drop out of the sky and he would have it all his own way - something that characterised his approach to everything from cricket to conversation.

I found out for myself the level of pettiness at which Stanford operated. Before I went to Antigua to live, I donated my newspaper column to the Antigua Sun, a paper owned by Stanford (and also running at a loss). I did it both because a colleague was the editor of the Sun and because some Antiguans were reading my column off the Web and liked it. In 2007, I was negotiating with Stanford and his people on behalf of the WICB for an agreement that would allow him to hold the 20/20 and the Superstars game.

One week, two things happened that angered him. I had written about an experience with Caribbean Star, in which there was only one bottle of water and it ran out, leaving us thirsty on an island-hopping flight from Trinidad to Antigua. My comment was that fortunately, Stanford was a billionaire; if he was just a millionaire there would be no water at all on the flight. I was also getting tired of the shifting ground rules or goalposts in the negotiations. We would agree on something and then his people would come back with a different position. He brandished his money out front as an inducement and then kept reducing the amount while increasing his demands. I was openly critical of this ploy.

He personally called the editor of the Sun and instructed him to immediately discontinue my column. I took this philosophically. As I told the editor, that was his business and he could do what he wanted. Now the situation has changed and the SEC is calling the shots, and big shots at that - Stanford, Madoff and the gang that couldn't keep straight.

Tony Deyal was last seen hoping that by the time this article goes to print on Carnival Saturday in Trinidad, the SEC and the FBI catch their RAS.