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A bloody, four-month political standoff ended Monday when troops loyal to Ivory Coast’s elected president _ backed by French ground and air forces _ captured the West African country’s longtime leader who had refused to give up power.

Video of former President Laurent Gbagbo being led into a room in a white undershirt was broadcast on television as proof of his detention. He would not sign a statement formally ceding power after losing a Nov. 28 election to economist Alassane Ouattara.

More than 1 million civilians fled their homes and untold numbers were killed in the power struggle between the two rivals that threatened to re-ignite a civil war in the world’s largest cocoa producer. Gbagbo’s security forces have been accused of using cannons, 60 mm mortars and 50-caliber machine guns to mow down opponents during the standoff.

President Barack Obama welcomed Gbagbo’s capture, calling it a victory for the democratic will of the Ivorian people, who “have the chance to begin to reclaim their country, solidify their democracy and rebuild a vibrant economy.”

Gbagbo, who ruled the former French colony for a decade, was pulled from his burning residence by Ouattara’s troops following fighting earlier in the day.

Residents of the commercial capital of Abidjan refrained from celebrating in public, still fearful of the many armed fighters prowling the streets and refusing to believe their leader had been arrested. Sporadic gunfire echoed across the city Monday night.

Gbagbo, 65, could be forced to answer for his soldiers’ crimes, even though an international trial threatens to stoke the divisions that Ouattara will now have to heal as president.

Gbagbo’s dramatic arrest came after days of heavy fighting in which French and U.N. helicopters fired rockets at arms depots around the city and targets within the presidential compound. Ouattara’s final push began just after French airstrikes ceased at around 3 a.m. Monday. A simultaneous French armored advance secured large parts of the city, and pro-Ouattara troops entered the presidential compound just after midday.

“We attacked and forced in a part of the bunker,” Issard Soumahro, a pro-Ouattara fighter at the scene, told The Associated Press.

He added that Gbagbo was tired and had been slapped by a soldier, but was not otherwise hurt.

Another pro-Ouattara fighter, Yaya Toure, said the assault was “hard in the beginning but we got up our courage to enter” the residence.

Gbagbo “tried to escape by the lagoon,” Toure said, adding that the French forces in helicopters “cut off his escape route, so he came back to his residence.”

“Then in the residence, we went in and took him,” he said. “It wasn’t the whites (the French) who took him _ it was us.”

Other pro-Ouattara soldiers wore a few smiles, but mostly the men continued to concentrate on clearing the city of armed gangs.

Witnesses at the nearby Golf Hotel said Gbagbo was brought in with his wife, son and about 50 members of his entourage.

“The nightmare is over for the people of Ivory Coast,” Youssoufou Bamba, appointed by Ouattara as the country’s U.N. ambassador, said in New York. Bamba declared that Gbagbo will be brought to justice.

In the western town of Duekoue, pro-Ouattara forces fired into the air in jubilation, panicking refugees who fled in all directions or fell to the ground in terror. In villages east of Duekoue, people danced in the streets, waving tree branches. In one village, young men paraded with the orange, white and green Ivorian flag.

“This is an end of a chapter that should never have been,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said. “We have to help them to restore stability, rule of law, and address all humanitarian and security issues.”

Ouattara’s ambassador to France, Ali Coulibaly, told France-Info radio that Gbagbo would be “treated with humanity,” adding that the former leader “must answer for the crimes against humanity that he committed.”

Some critics of Gbagbo had accused him of clinging to power in part to avoid prosecution by the International Criminal Court.

Ivan Simonovic, assistant secretary-general for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, told reporters that teams from his office saw the bodies of around 400 people even before the wave of violence that culminated in Gbagbo’s arrest.

The U.N. rights official says he discussed the importance of filling the security vacuum with Ouattara, 69, and his ministers during a visit to the country last week.

Ouattara has called for police to return to their posts, for all Ivorians to refrain from political reprisals, and announced severe punishment for those who retaliate, Simonovic said.

He said Ouattara seemed “very much interested” in the High Commissioner’s support for a truth and reconciliation commission to examine the conflict.

“I think it is essential to break the cycle of impunity and retaliation,” Simonovic said. “If after the conflict in 2002 we had established truth and accountability, perhaps we would have prevented what has happened now.”

Geoffrey Robertson, a British-based human rights lawyer and former president of U.N. special court for Sierra Leone, said the U.N. must protect Gbagbo from his own people and then transfer him to The Hague for investigation for launching an attack on the U.N. headquarters in Ivory Coast and against the civilians that the U.N. was protecting.

Richard Downie, an Africa expert at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said it will be difficult for Ivory Coast to put Gbagbo on trial, adding that it would “probably be a lightning rod for more unrest.”

Ouattara “didn’t want to come to power this way, through the barrel of a gun,” Downie said. “He was elected fairly and freely. But this is the situation he was dealt. It’s going to be incredibly difficult for him to bring the country together.”

Ivory Coast was divided into a rebel-controlled north and a loyalist south by a 2002-2003 civil war and was officially reunited in a 2007 peace deal. The long-delayed presidential election was intended to bring together the nation but instead unleashed months of violence.

Gbagbo already had overstayed his mandate by five years when he called the fall election and won 46 percent of the runoff vote. When the country’s election commission and international observers declared on Dec. 2 that he lost the balloting, he refused to step down.

The former history professor defied near-universal international pressure to hand over power to Ouattara. The two set up parallel administrations that vied for control of the onetime West African economic powerhouse.

Ouattara drew his support from the U.N. and world powers. Gbagbo maintained his hold over the country’s military and security forces who carried out a campaign of terror, kidnapping, killing and raping opponents.

Gbagbo wrapped himself in the country’s flag as he took the oath of office at his inauguration.

“No one has the right to call on foreign armies to invade his country,” Gbagbo declared in a TV address on Dec. 31. “Our greatest duty to our country is to defend it from foreign attack.”

Ivory Coast gained independence from France in 1960, and some 20,000 French citizens lived there when the civil war broke out.

French troops were then given the task by the U.N. of monitoring a cease-fire and protecting foreign nationals in Ivory Coast, which was once an economic star but faded under Gbagbo.

Since late March, thousands of French and foreign nationals in Abidjan were evacuated by French tanks and helicopters to an army base on the edge of the city, where a refugee camp was set up for the privileged. Regular Ivorians were not permitted at the camp, and many ran out of food and water, forcing hungry people onto the streets during the fighting.

Gbagbo had described efforts against him as tantamount to a foreign coup d’etat.

The French government sought to distance itself from Gbagbo’s arrest.

“France intervened at the request of the United Nations secretary-general to neutralize the heavy weapons that Gbagbo was using against the civilian population and against (U.N. peacekeepers),” said French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe. “After that, it was the Ivory Coast republican forces, including Mr. Ouattara’s troops, who entered the presidential residence and arrested Mr. Gbagbo.”

Other West African nations had considered military intervention to remove Gbagbo, but those efforts never materialized. Sanctions imposed on Gbagbo and his inner circle by the U.S. and European Union failed to dislodge him.

While the U.N. passed resolutions allowing its peacekeepers to intervene to protect civilians, anti-Gbagbo neighborhoods in Abidjan continued to be pummeled with mortar shells. So many people were killed that the local morgue had to stack corpses on the floor.

Ouattara tried to assert his authority from the Golf Hotel, protected by U.N. peacekeepers, and imposed an embargo on cocoa exports in a bid to strangle Gbagbo financially. In a desperation, Gbagbo seized control of foreign banks in Abidjan _ prompting their flight and a liquidity crunch.

In the heartland of Gbagbo’s Bete tribe, people were subdued. A small group of dancing youths in the village of Karriere shouted expletives about Gbagbo and chanted, “They fished Gbagbo out of his hole.”

Other people repeated Ouattara’s initials over and over, chanting “A.D.O. is our president!”

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China, the largest wheat consumer, says the drought in the country’s main growing region may be prolonged, as prices surge to a record.

About 115.95 million mu (7.73 million hectares) of wheat, or 42 percent of the total planted in the eight major producing provinces, is affected by the dry spell that may last into the spring, Minister of Agriculture Han Changfu said in a statement on the department’s website yesterday.

Rain on the North China Plain has been “substantially” below-normal since October, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization said Feb. 8. Continued drought could force China, largely self-sufficient in wheat, to buy more grain from overseas suppliers, said Jason Britt, an analyst at Central States Commodities Inc.

“That sends a little bit of a shiver through the market,” Britt said by telephone from Kansas City, Missouri. China may import 1 million metric tons of wheat this year, compared with 9.8 million tons by Egypt, the top buyer, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Drought-affected provinces including Hebei, Shanxi, Henan, Shandong, Jiangsu and Anhui have received “precious snow” since yesterday which will help relieve some of the dryness, the National Meteorological Center said on its website. Rain and snow are forecast to continue today, it said.

‘One Big Rain’

Wheat futures jumped to 3,064 yuan ($465) a metric ton on the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange today, a record for the most- active contract. The price on the Chicago Board of Trade, a global benchmark, was little changed at $8.8425 a bushel after jumping to $8.9325 a bushel yesterday, the highest since 2008.

Most crops in China’s wheat region are irrigated and only about 5 percent of the area’s annual precipitation normally falls in the December-February period, said Mike Tannura, a meteorologist at T-Storm Weather in Chicago.

“Even though it’s been dry relative to average, 95 percent of precipitation occurs from March through November,” Tannura said. “It’s a concern, no question about it, but one big rain in March and all of a sudden they’re back above average.”

Major wheat growing areas have received about 0.25 inch (0.6 centimeter) of precipitation since Dec. 1, about 20 percent of the usual amount, he said.

Food Costs

China pledged to spend an extra 6.7 billion yuan ($1 billion) to boost emergency water supply and irrigation resources, according to a government statement. This is in addition to 10 yuan per mu in direct subsidies to encourage farmers to water wheat, and another 10 yuan to fertilize weakened seedlings, it said.

Rising food costs have stoked inflation in emerging economies instant personal loans guaranteed. The past month’s protests in North Africa and the Middle East were partly linked to food costs.

China’s consumer prices advanced 3.3 percent last year, breaching a government target of 3 percent. The January rate may have accelerated to 5.4 percent, according to the median estimate of 26 economists surveyed by Bloomberg, from 4.6 percent in December. Inflation in Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s biggest economy, was 7.02 percent last month, a 21-month high.

The People’s Bank of China on Feb. 8 raised the one-year lending rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 6.06 percent and the one-year deposit rate an equivalent amount to 3 percent.

Top Consumer

The provinces most affected by the drought are Shandong, Jiangsu, Henan, Hebei and Shanxi, representing 67 percent of the country’s wheat production in 2009, the FAO said. China has 14 million hectares (34.6 million acres) planted with winter wheat in those areas, of which about 5.16 million hectares may have been hurt, it said, citing government estimates.

China is the largest wheat consumer, representing about 17 percent of global usage in the year to June 30, the London-based International Grains Council predicts. The country’s wheat output may have dropped to 114.5 million tons at the last harvest from 115.1 million tons a year earlier, the USDA estimates. Macquarie Group Ltd. expects production to drop a further 4 million tons this year.

Premier Wen Jiabao visited Shandong last week during the Lunar New Year holiday to inspect conditions on the ground, according to the Xinhua News Agency. The country has to “prepare for the worst and do our best to combat the drought to ensure a good harvest,” Wen was cited as saying.

While the UN says global food prices climbed to a record in December, grain stockpiles have been replenished since 2007-2009, when the U.S. State Department estimates there were more than 60 food riots worldwide. Combined inventories of corn, wheat, rice and soybeans will end this year at 457.6 million tons, 21 percent more than in 2007, USDA estimates show.

China has abundant wheat stockpiles which will lessen the impact of the drought on supply, Li Qi, an analyst at Everbright Futures Co., wrote in a report. Inventories are the highest in seven years, Li said.

–William Bi, Feiwen Rong. With assistance by Whitney McFerron in Washington. Editor: James Poole

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: William Bi in Beijing at +86-10-6649-7578 or wbi@bloomberg.net

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Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said lawmakers must raise the federal borrowing limit in the first quarter of 2011 or risk a default on U.S. debt and a loss of access to global credit markets.

A failure to act would cause “catastrophic damage to the economy, potentially much more harmful than the effects of the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009,” Geithner said in a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and all other members of Congress. Lawmakers should act before a default becomes “imminent” because damage from even a short-term disruption “would last for decades.”

The Treasury estimates the debt limit could be reached as early as March 31, and “most likely” between that date and May 16. The limit stands at $14.29 trillion, leaving about $335 billion of “headroom,” Geithner’s letter said.

Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, said in a statement Congress needs to pair a debt-limit increase with spending cuts and changes to a “broken” budget process. He said the country can’t afford default or to “recklessly” keep borrowing.

“The American people will not stand for such an increase unless it is accompanied by meaningful action by the President and Congress to cut spending and end the job-killing spending binge in Washington,” Boehner said.

Geithner said that even with the kinds of spending cuts under discussion, like reverting to spending levels from fiscal year 2008, “the need to increase the debt limit would be delayed by no more than two weeks.”

Department’s Toolkit

The Treasury chief also said his department’s toolkit of emergency measures, such as tapping some government retirement funds and suspending some types of intergovernmental lending, would delay a debt ceiling breach “by several weeks.” At that point, he said, “no remaining legal and prudent measures” would be available and the U.S. would start to default.

Obama administration officials said they want to separate the debt limit from other fiscal-policy concerns. In a briefing with reporters today, a Treasury official predicted Congress would act to avert a crisis.

The debt limit should be resolved without being tied to long-term fiscal issues including spending and taxes, the Treasury official told reporters. Lawmakers will probably agree to raise the limit because of the consequences of the idea that the U.S. could default, the official said.

Federal Deficit

The U.S. had a $1.3 trillion budget deficit in fiscal year 2010, which ended Sept. 30. President Barack Obama’s debt- reduction panel failed last month to agree on recommendations for ways to reduce the annual deficit to about $400 billion in 2015 no fax cash advance.

Lawmakers are likely to wait “until the last minute” to pull back from the brink, said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Pierpont Securities LLC. He predicted the House would seek to win concessions from the Senate and the White House by using the debt ceiling as leverage.

“Usually, the debt limit hike is more of a rhetorical than substantive debate, a painful vote that has to be done but nothing more than an opportunity to score political points,” Stanley said in an e-mail to Bloomberg. “This time, obtaining passage will be more complicated because it will be tied to substantive budget policy.”

The White House declined to respond directly to Boehner’s statement and pointed to comments by spokesman Robert Gibbs today on MSNBC’s “The Daily Rundown.”

‘Adult Conversation’

Last year, Boehner said the government is “going to have an adult conversation around the debt ceiling,” Gibbs said on the program, according to a transcript. “We’re going to have to — because Republicans and I think the speaker understands, he’s got responsibilities.”

Gibbs wouldn’t rule out linking a debt-ceiling vote to restrictions on spending, saying the conversation “is going to start before and end well after the debt-ceiling vote about how we get our fiscal house in order.”

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan said a short-term debt ceiling increase may be part of the GOP strategy to force spending control. Regarding Obama, he said it’s “his choice” if he were to refuse to sign a bill that contained a debt-limit increase, creating the risk of default. He said lawmakers and the administration can negotiate how long any debt ceiling increase might last.

Spending Controls

“Do I want to see this nation default? No,” Ryan said at a National Press Club event today. “I want to see that we get substantial spending cuts and spending controls in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.”

Ryan said he would not support a “naked” debt limit increase. “Nobody likes brinksmanship, but what we really don’t like is runaway spending that’s threatening this country,” he said.

Geithner’s letter tackles Republican “misconceptions” that the debt ceiling is tied to spending cuts, said Stan Collender, a former congressional budget aide and now managing director of Qorvis Communications in Washington. “The Treasury Secretary is saying in this letter that, when it comes to the debt ceiling, the GOP is wearing no clothes,” he said.

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European Central Bank Governing Council member Nout Wellink said it is not the central bank’s task to rescue euro-area countries with funding problems.

“It’s not up to the ECB to save countries where governments run the risk of becoming insolvent,” Wellink, who also heads the Dutch central bank, said at a panel discussion in Amsterdam today. “We are not here to take over, on our balance sheet, the risks of the national economies of Europe.”

The Frankfurt-based ECB wants governments to take the lead in quelling the turmoil that threatens to spread to other countries from Ireland and Greece. Last week the central bank snapped up Portuguese and Irish bonds after ECB President Jean- Claude Trichet assured investors that policy makers will delay the withdrawal of emergency liquidity.

Wellink said today he’s “not in favor” of a joint euro- area bond because it would weaken the financial system as it is “a hidden way of burden sharing instant credit report.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who heads Europe’s largest economy, also rejects the common bonds and reiterated in Berlin that she opposes adding to the rescue fund for indebted nations.

Separately, Wellink said the price of gold “has increased excessively.”

Gold futures for February delivery jumped today to a record $1,429.40 an ounce on concern the U.S. will pump more cash into the economy and Europe’s debt woes will spread, boosting the appeal of the metal as an alternative to currencies.

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The Atlanta KFC Advertising Co-op, has named LevLane of Philadelphia as its first agency of record since the co-op formed in 2002.

The Atlanta KFC Advertising Co-op, which will have a $2.5 million budget in 2011, includes 10 members in the metro Atlanta market.

LevLane manages six other KFC regional co-op accounts, in Vt., Mass., N.Y., Penn. and Fla.

The first ads for the new campaign, which will include TV, radio, digital, print, and outdoor, are expected to begin in January.

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Fewer mortgage borrowers are delinquent on their loan payments, according to the latest data from the Mortgage Bankers Association.

The nation’s overall delinquency rate dropped to 9.85% in the second quarter, down from 10.06% of all loans outstanding three months earlier.

Even better, the percentage of seriously delinquent loans — ones 90+ days late or already repossessed by lenders — dropped to 9.11% from 9.54% in the first quarter.

The drop in loans 90 days or more late was the biggest the MBA has ever recorded, according to the MBA’s chief economist, Jay Brinkmann. "That shows we’re making headway," he said.

He cited three reasons for the improvement:

• Fewer loans are coming into the default process;
• The homebuyers tax credit, which increased demand for homes, generated many pre-foreclosure sales, removing the attached delinquent loans from the statistics;
• The government- and lender-led mortgage modifications "cured" some payment problems.

However, even with those bright spots, there was one troubling finding: First-time delinquencies increased after four quarters of decline. It inched up to 3.51% in the second quarter from 3.45% in the first quarter. According to Brinkmann, the reversal reflects the weakness in both the housing market and the overall economy.

"It’s a question of jobs," he said. "It takes a paycheck to make a mortgage payment."

Underscoring the trend is the foreclosure trend among borrowers with conventional loans, like 30-year, fixed rate mortgages. They accounted for nearly 36% of foreclosure starts during the quarter. And these safe loans rarely get into trouble unless they lose employment or income business card.

The four worst hit states — California, Florida, Arizona and Nevada — still account for nearly 60% of national delinquencies, but California’s numbers dropped dramatically this year. At the end of 2009, California foreclosure starts made up nearly 20% of the nation’s total. That dropped to 14.7% during the second quarter.

Another positive trend is the gradual downturn in the number of borrowers who are underwater on their mortgages, owing more than their homes are worth.

CoreLogic reported today that the rate of borrowers underwater dropped to 23% in the second quarter from 24% in the first.

When borrowers fall underwater, it increases the chance that they’ll lose the homes. Brinkmann calls it one of the two "triggers" that lead to foreclosure.

If homeowners have positive equity, they can use it as a source of cash to pay bills, including mortgages. But if their cash reserves are gone and they can’t afford to make payments because their income has dropped, foreclosure is almost inevitable.

CoreLogic found that negative equity is worst in five states: Nevada (68%), Arizona (50%), Florida (46%), Michigan (38%) and California (33%).

Have you just become delinquent on your mortgage payment? Is it because you lost your job? If so, send an email to realstories@cnnmoney.com and you could be profiled in an upcoming story. Please include a contact phone number. For the CNNMoney.com Comment Policy, click here.  

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This is a weekly roundup of accomplishments and deals by businesses in the Birmingham metro area. For more announcements, check out the Birmingham Business Journal’s print edition each week. Send announcements to ccrawford@bizjournals.com.

FITNESS

Iron Tribe Fitness opened in Birmingham in February and now has a membership of 200 clients. It is one of 1,700 affiliates of the CrossFit network worldwide. Iron Tribe founder Forrest Walden opened his first Fitness Together franchise in 2001 and, by 2009, he had developed 55 locations in three states that participate in Iron Tribe Fitness.

NONPROFITS

The Alabama Association of Nonprofits has formed a new partnership with the Internal Revenue Service to help educate the more than 21,000 nonprofit organizations in Alabama about how to protect their tax-exempt status and comply with tax obligations on the heels of recent announcements about exemption revocations by the IRS. The association and the IRS will host a seminar in Birmingham Sept. 14 entitled “How to Lose Your Tax-Exempt Status (Without Really Trying).” Registration for the session is open at www.alabamanonprofits.org.

RETAIL

The state’s first Neighborhood Market, located in Center Point, reopened July 23 after a major three-month remodeling project. The store distributed grants to local organizations as part of the reopening. The store hired about 30 associates to help with the remodel. It employs approximately 90 associates.

TECHNOLOGY

TekLinks, a regional IT services provider headquartered in Birmingham, achieved the Cisco Channel Customer Satisfaction Excellence for the eighth consecutive year low interest personal loan.

More than 200 people are expected to attend this year’s BarCampBirmingham conference. The event will take place from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Innovation Depot, 1500 First Ave. N., downtown. Free tickets are available in limited supply by visiting barcampbirmingham.org.

UNIVERSITIES

The University of Alabama at Birmingham developed a new Advanced Placement Scholarship Program for Birmingham City School System seniors, using income generated from an endowed fund made possible by an anonymous $4 million cash gift designated for scholarships for women and minorities. The first students to participate in the program will be eligible to receive their scholarships for the fall 2011 term.

Funding has been extended and expanded for the aerospace crew, robotics, avionics and equipment work performed by UAB’s Center for Biophysical Sciences and Engineering for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The new contract is valued at more than $70 million and is shared among UAB and three out-of-state engineering firms.

UTILITIES

Southern Co. employees held a food drive for the Birmingham Salvation Army and dropped off more than 1,000 food items. The drive was a competition between six departments at Southern Co. and was called “Put Your Manager to Work,” because the managers had to stack and organize the nonperishable food.

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Weyerhaeuser Co. said it’s selling six of its railroads that operate over about 160 miles of track, to Patriot Rail Corp.

The Federal Way timber giant (NYSE: WY) said it’s selling the six railroads, including two in Southwest Washington, to Boca Raton, Fla.-based Patriot for an undisclosed sum.

The six railroads handle about 60,000 carloads of freight annually, Weyerhaeuser said, and they employ about 120 people total.

The railroads in the sale include:

— The DeQueen and Eastern Railroad Company consists of two railroads — the DeQueen and Eastern and the Texas, Oklahoma & Eastern railroads — that operate over a total of 87 route miles in southeast Oklahoma and southwest Arkansas;

— The Columbia & Cowlitz Railway operates over 8 payday loan.5 route miles in Southwest Washington;

— The Weyerhaeuser Woods Railroad operates over 30 route miles in Southwest Washington.

— The Golden Triangle Railroad operates over 13.3 route miles in central Mississippi; and

— The Mississippi & Skuna Valley Railroad owns 21 route miles in Mississippi.

Patriot said that the railroads primarily source Weyerhaeuser and International Paper mills, move finished products and serve some third-party customers.

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Two billionaire brothers face federal fraud charges for selling stock in companies which they helped oversee and then trying to conceal some $550 million in gains.

In a complaint issued late Thursday, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Sam and Charles Wyly Jr. attempted to hide their ownership and trading of stock in these firms by creating an elaborate system of off-shore trusts and subsidiary companies.

The SEC said the Wylys served as corporate directors at four different firms that were publicly traded at the time: Michaels Stores, Sterling Software, Sterling Commerce, and Scottish Annuity & Life Holdings, now known as Scottish Re Group Limited.

Over a period of 13 years, the brothers went to great lengths to hide their scheme, including making misleading statements to brokerage firm intermediaries, according to the SEC.

"The cloak of secrecy has been lifted from the complex web of foreign structures used by the Wylys to evade the securities laws," Lorin Reisner, deputy director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement said in a statement.

Attempts to reach the Wylys’ attorney were not immediately successful.

Thursday’s announcement is not the Wylys’ first brush with the law. In 1979, Sam Wyly came under investigation by the SEC over a bond deal his company was involved with. He would ultimately settle the case without admitting or denying the allegations.

The Wylys’ personal wealth was also at the center of a reported federal and state investigation from 2005 into whether Bank of America was helping wealthy clients hide their fortunes from the IRS.

In 2001, Sam Wyly made headlines following a drawn-out battle to win control of the software maker Computer Associates.

Throughout their respective careers, both men also established deep connections within the political world. Sam Wyly served as chairman of a presidential advisory commission under Presidents Nixon and Ford. Charles Wyly also served on a presidential advisory council on the issue of management improvement.

Between 2002 and 2010, members of the Wyly family made more than $178,000 in political campaign contributions through an entity called Ranger Governance, according to the nonprofit research firm MapLight.org. 

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