At a gathering of core senior employees earlier this month in Miami, Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford admitted that he had misappropriated investor funds and falsified financial statements, the Securities and Exchange Commission alleged.

The claims against Stanford - who owns and runs a web of financial companies which operate under the name Stanford Financial Group - were made in an amended complaint filed today with the U.S. District Court in Dallas.

The SEC says the meeting took place between Feb. 2 and Feb. 6. At the time, the chief financial officer of Stanford Financial Group and Stanford Investment Bank, James M. Davis also admitted to the same conduct, the SEC alleged.

The complaint says Stanford executed a massive Ponzi scheme. which Another defendant in the case, Chief Investment Officer at SFG and a member of SIB's investment committee, Laura Pendergest-Holt, allegedly facilitated the fraudulent scheme, which involved $8 billion in total assets at SIB.

Four days after the Miami meetings Pendergest-Holt, in testimony to the SEC denied knowing the status of most of the bank's assets and failed to disclose that Stanford and Davis had misappropriated investor funds, the Commission said.