A FORMER Mississippi investor, who had been charged by US officials for perpetrating security fraud, became the country’s latest murder victim when he was found stabbed and mutilated in his home.

Anthony Kyle Welch, 46, was discovered at his Albacore Drive home in Grand Bahama, bound with duct tape with multiple stab wounds about his body, a laceration to his throat, and two severed fingers on each hand.

A dog was also found in the home with multiple stab wounds.

According to police insiders, the discovery was made around 10pm on Friday – with the victim finally being pronounced dead at 11:25pm that night.

Mr Welch has been living in the Bahamas for the past seven years with his female companion from South Africa.

In September 2012, Mr Welch had been charged by US regulators with perpetrating a securities fraud that increased two companies’ stock prices by 600 per cent and 300 per cent respectively.

Detailing how the scheme worked, the US capital markets regulator alleged that he took over two microcap stocks, eHydrogen and ChromoCure, both of which are now “essentially defunct entities with no assets and little to no actual business operations” and then issued a series of “false and misleading press releases” designed to pump up their share prices.

Among the false and misleading statements cited by the SEC was a claim that eHydrogen had raised $2 million from an intellectual property deal; that ChromoCure’s cancer detecting technology was “100 per cent accurate for all cancers at all stages”; and that ChromoCure was involved in a $29 million merger.

Grand Bahama Police Inspector Terecita Pinder told The Tribune that police are aggressively searching for the persons responsible for Mr Welsh’s murder. She appealed to members of the public who might have information to call their nearest police station.