Bernard Ebbers, the ex-WorldCom chief executive who was jailed after overseeing an $11 billion accounting fraud, has died, US media reported Sunday. He was 78. Ebbers, a religious man dubbed the "Telecom cowboy" during his heyday, turned a sleepy Mississippi firm into a US telecoms giant.

Deal after deal made him a darling of Wall Street before his success was exposed as a huge illusion. His family confirmed his death in a statement reported by local media, stating they were "thankful for the time that we had to be with and care for Dad in his final days".

In 2005 Ebbers was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his role in the $11 billion fraud - one of the largest in US history - that led to the collapse of his WorldCom empire in 2002. In December last year, he was released early due to his poor health, having served roughly 13 years of his sentence.

Born in Edmonton, Canada on August 27, 1941, Ebbers' family moved south when he was a child. His father John became a business manager for a Christian mission on a Navajo reservation in New Mexico. Ebbers, a moderately good basketballer but only an average student, twice dropped out of university before giving school a final try at Mississippi College. He graduated in 1966 and the following year married a Mississippi girl, Linda Piggott, and made the US South his home.