This guy is a loser's loser
12-14-2008, 07:27 AM
#1
Rooting for Acura
Thread Starter
iTrader: (1)
This guy is a loser's loser
...and why is this not front page news?
How does a scammer lose $50 billion
http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/to...0-billion.aspx
If there's any good coming out of the economic crisis, it's this: Financial scams are getting uprooted as investors start asking for their money back.
Regulators have just busted open one of the biggest cons in history, one that may have robbed investors of as much as $50 billion. And, they say, it was orchestrated by one of the most respected names on Wall Street -- a guy who once chaired the Nasdaq Stock Market, for crying out loud.
That's why the Street is in an uproar about Bernard Madoff, whose behavior was so outrageous that his own sons turned him in. Madoff was arrested Thursday by federal agents.
How did this guy lose $50 billion? It's quite simple, according to authorities. Investors gave him money, and when he lost it, he paid them back with new money from other investors. It was a classic Ponzi scheme, and it collapsed when lots of investors wanted their money back at the same time.
Madoff didn't take advantage of the little guy. His clients were mostly wealthy investors, hedge funds and other institutions, according to the Wall Street Journal. He was very secretive about his dealings, employees said, tucking the investment business away from the rest of his firm and keeping financial statements locked up.
Investors loved Madoff because he gave them small but steady returns. Monthly gains were usually between zero and 2%, the Journal said. He favored large-cap stocks and U.S. Treasurys -- or at least that's what he told his clients. He didn't charge investment management fees. Sounds too good to be true, right?
At the beginning of this year, Madoff was managing at least $17 billion in investor money, according to the SEC. He allegedly told his sons that his losses exceeded $50 billion.
If that's true, then Madoff is the most crooked con man in the most crooked financial system in history. He's the cream of the crop -- his fraud was five times bigger than the WorldCom debacle. After the year we've had, it's not really surprising that this level of malfeasance exists.
Here's what others are saying about Madoff today:
Hedge fund analyst Christopher Miller: "Some of the world's biggest hedge funds have been hit by this. There will be a monumental impact for the hedge fund industry, it could be larger then Enron....When people realize the magnitude of this it will be fizzing around the stratosphere."
Investor lawyer Gerald Silk: "I have had a lot of calls between last night and this morning from people who have lost a lot of money."
TheStreet.com: "If the Madoff story is correct, it is the single biggest financial story of the year. Indeed, it is bigger than Enron or Tyco, bigger than Boesky and far bigger than Bayou. It attacks at the core of investor confidence, which has already crumbled and remains very fragile."
Henry Blodget: "We're hearing that the smart money KNEW Bernie had to be cheating, because the returns he was generating were impossibly good. Many Wall Streeters suspected the wrong rigged game, though: They thought it was insider trading, not a Ponzi scheme. And here's the best part: That's why they invested with him."
How does a scammer lose $50 billion
http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/to...0-billion.aspx
If there's any good coming out of the economic crisis, it's this: Financial scams are getting uprooted as investors start asking for their money back.
Regulators have just busted open one of the biggest cons in history, one that may have robbed investors of as much as $50 billion. And, they say, it was orchestrated by one of the most respected names on Wall Street -- a guy who once chaired the Nasdaq Stock Market, for crying out loud.
That's why the Street is in an uproar about Bernard Madoff, whose behavior was so outrageous that his own sons turned him in. Madoff was arrested Thursday by federal agents.
How did this guy lose $50 billion? It's quite simple, according to authorities. Investors gave him money, and when he lost it, he paid them back with new money from other investors. It was a classic Ponzi scheme, and it collapsed when lots of investors wanted their money back at the same time.
Madoff didn't take advantage of the little guy. His clients were mostly wealthy investors, hedge funds and other institutions, according to the Wall Street Journal. He was very secretive about his dealings, employees said, tucking the investment business away from the rest of his firm and keeping financial statements locked up.
Investors loved Madoff because he gave them small but steady returns. Monthly gains were usually between zero and 2%, the Journal said. He favored large-cap stocks and U.S. Treasurys -- or at least that's what he told his clients. He didn't charge investment management fees. Sounds too good to be true, right?
At the beginning of this year, Madoff was managing at least $17 billion in investor money, according to the SEC. He allegedly told his sons that his losses exceeded $50 billion.
If that's true, then Madoff is the most crooked con man in the most crooked financial system in history. He's the cream of the crop -- his fraud was five times bigger than the WorldCom debacle. After the year we've had, it's not really surprising that this level of malfeasance exists.
Here's what others are saying about Madoff today:
Hedge fund analyst Christopher Miller: "Some of the world's biggest hedge funds have been hit by this. There will be a monumental impact for the hedge fund industry, it could be larger then Enron....When people realize the magnitude of this it will be fizzing around the stratosphere."
Investor lawyer Gerald Silk: "I have had a lot of calls between last night and this morning from people who have lost a lot of money."
TheStreet.com: "If the Madoff story is correct, it is the single biggest financial story of the year. Indeed, it is bigger than Enron or Tyco, bigger than Boesky and far bigger than Bayou. It attacks at the core of investor confidence, which has already crumbled and remains very fragile."
Henry Blodget: "We're hearing that the smart money KNEW Bernie had to be cheating, because the returns he was generating were impossibly good. Many Wall Streeters suspected the wrong rigged game, though: They thought it was insider trading, not a Ponzi scheme. And here's the best part: That's why they invested with him."
12-14-2008, 01:11 PM
#4
Well, if you're managing billions of dollars, wouldn't you be looking to cheat too?
What's the difference between having an "edge" and "cheating" anyway? Where do you draw the line?
And as that last bit says, his investors knew he was cheating, they just didn't think they were the ones being cheated. There's something about it being OK as long as the person being cheated is the other guy, that smells a lot like karma coming to bite you in the ass. It doesn't really make me feel all that bad for that investor.
I know that overall it's "bad" - but I'm trying to understand the allure from a management perspective.
What's the difference between having an "edge" and "cheating" anyway? Where do you draw the line?
And as that last bit says, his investors knew he was cheating, they just didn't think they were the ones being cheated. There's something about it being OK as long as the person being cheated is the other guy, that smells a lot like karma coming to bite you in the ass. It doesn't really make me feel all that bad for that investor.
I know that overall it's "bad" - but I'm trying to understand the allure from a management perspective.
12-14-2008, 05:12 PM
#5
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Well, if you're managing billions of dollars, wouldn't you be looking to cheat too?
What's the difference between having an "edge" and "cheating" anyway? Where do you draw the line?
And as that last bit says, his investors knew he was cheating, they just didn't think they were the ones being cheated. There's something about it being OK as long as the person being cheated is the other guy, that smells a lot like karma coming to bite you in the ass. It doesn't really make me feel all that bad for that investor.
I know that overall it's "bad" - but I'm trying to understand the allure from a management perspective.
What's the difference between having an "edge" and "cheating" anyway? Where do you draw the line?
And as that last bit says, his investors knew he was cheating, they just didn't think they were the ones being cheated. There's something about it being OK as long as the person being cheated is the other guy, that smells a lot like karma coming to bite you in the ass. It doesn't really make me feel all that bad for that investor.
I know that overall it's "bad" - but I'm trying to understand the allure from a management perspective.
FYI, a number of small charities (largely Jewish) and non-profit organizations whose principal/funds were purportedly "managed" by Madoff have know been devastated-- the AP story was in the LA Times front page yesterday: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...CHH3gD952EMG00.
I'm pretty sure most of Madoff's investors didn't think he was getting insider info on that scale, either-- I doubt anyone can have access to that amount of insider info on multiple investments other than dept. managers in the investment banks.
What struck me and gave me faith in basic honesty was the fact that Madoff's sons were willing to and did turn him in to the authorities.
12-15-2008, 12:26 PM
#6
Wow, I didn't realize he was stealing outright. I just thought he was illegaly manipulating his dealings.
I heard about the charities this morning. That's terrible news.
R&P Note: Let's not forget this guy was a Democrat and Clinton contributor.
I heard about the charities this morning. That's terrible news.
R&P Note: Let's not forget this guy was a Democrat and Clinton contributor.
Trending Topics
12-15-2008, 02:47 PM
#9
Loser is putting it mild this guy was a monster. I wonder at what point in his career did he decide to go bad. He was the founder of electronic trading one of the founders of NASDAQ and he had a great reputation and that's one of the many reasons people invested with him. I'm sure as evidence is uncovered more people had to be involved because that's the only explanation to why he was never caught by the SEC/FINRA.
Madoff told his son's that he had about 200-300 million left and he wanted to leave it somehow to friends and family. The son's were smart to turn him in basically that was their only option because the magnifying glass is going to get hot on this situation and they knew they would have been caught anyways.
Madoff told his son's that he had about 200-300 million left and he wanted to leave it somehow to friends and family. The son's were smart to turn him in basically that was their only option because the magnifying glass is going to get hot on this situation and they knew they would have been caught anyways.
12-15-2008, 03:40 PM
#10
Team Owner
12-23-2008, 04:02 PM
#11
99 TL, 06 E350
Madoff investor commits suicide
And the plot thickens
http://business.theglobeandmail.com/.../Business/home
http://business.theglobeandmail.com/.../Business/home
The Associated Press
December 23, 2008 at 4:48 PM EST
NEW YORK — The founder of an investment fund that lost $1.4-billion (U.S.) with Bernard Madoff was discovered dead Tuesday after committing suicide at his Madison Avenue office, marking a grim turn in a scandal that has left investors around the world in financial ruin.
René-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet was found sitting at his desk at about 8 a.m. with both wrists slashed, New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said. A box cutter was found on the floor along with a bottle of sleeping pills on his desk. No suicide note was found.
Mr. de la Villehuchet was one of several fund managers to be hit hard in Mr. Madoff's alleged $50-billion Ponzi scheme. Investment funds that lost big to Mr. Madoff are also facing backlash and investor lawsuits for not protecting their clients from the alleged fraud.
It is not immediately known what kind of scrutiny Mr. de la Villehuchet was facing over his Madoff losses through his Access International Advisors, located a couple of blocks from Rockefeller Center.
But on Monday night, he told cleaning crews in his building that he wanted them out of his office by 7 p.m. because he was going to be working late.
Workers returned Tuesday morning and found the door locked. He was later discovered dead at his desk, with a garbage can placed near his body to apparently catch the blood, Mr. Browne said.
Mr. de la Villehuchet was a prominent investor who came from a long line of aristocratic Frenchmen, with the Magon part of his name referring to one of France's most powerful families.
His fund enlisted intermediaries with links to the cream of Europe's high society to garner clients. Among them was Philippe Junot, a French businessman and friend who is the former husband of Princess Caroline of Monaco.
Mr. de la Villehuchet, the former chairman and chief executive officer of Credit Lyonnais Securities USA, was also known as a keen sailor who regularly participated in regattas and was a member of the New York Yacht Club.
He lived in an affluent suburb in Westchester County with his wife. They have no children. There was no answer Tuesday at the family's two-story house, which has a majestic view of a pond.
“He's irreproachable,” said Bill Rapavy, who was Access International's chief operating officer before founding his own firm in 2007.
December 23, 2008 at 4:48 PM EST
NEW YORK — The founder of an investment fund that lost $1.4-billion (U.S.) with Bernard Madoff was discovered dead Tuesday after committing suicide at his Madison Avenue office, marking a grim turn in a scandal that has left investors around the world in financial ruin.
René-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet was found sitting at his desk at about 8 a.m. with both wrists slashed, New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said. A box cutter was found on the floor along with a bottle of sleeping pills on his desk. No suicide note was found.
Mr. de la Villehuchet was one of several fund managers to be hit hard in Mr. Madoff's alleged $50-billion Ponzi scheme. Investment funds that lost big to Mr. Madoff are also facing backlash and investor lawsuits for not protecting their clients from the alleged fraud.
It is not immediately known what kind of scrutiny Mr. de la Villehuchet was facing over his Madoff losses through his Access International Advisors, located a couple of blocks from Rockefeller Center.
But on Monday night, he told cleaning crews in his building that he wanted them out of his office by 7 p.m. because he was going to be working late.
Workers returned Tuesday morning and found the door locked. He was later discovered dead at his desk, with a garbage can placed near his body to apparently catch the blood, Mr. Browne said.
Mr. de la Villehuchet was a prominent investor who came from a long line of aristocratic Frenchmen, with the Magon part of his name referring to one of France's most powerful families.
His fund enlisted intermediaries with links to the cream of Europe's high society to garner clients. Among them was Philippe Junot, a French businessman and friend who is the former husband of Princess Caroline of Monaco.
Mr. de la Villehuchet, the former chairman and chief executive officer of Credit Lyonnais Securities USA, was also known as a keen sailor who regularly participated in regattas and was a member of the New York Yacht Club.
He lived in an affluent suburb in Westchester County with his wife. They have no children. There was no answer Tuesday at the family's two-story house, which has a majestic view of a pond.
“He's irreproachable,” said Bill Rapavy, who was Access International's chief operating officer before founding his own firm in 2007.
12-23-2008, 04:32 PM
#12
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THE MADOFF DOUBLE-BLUFF
by Muhammad Rafeeq (18th-Dec-08)
At first sight it was extremely refreshing. A white-collar financial crook raising his hands and pleading guilty to his financial crime. Th is has to be almost a first. Usually financial criminals when caught in the most obvious of wrong-doing plead 'not guilty'. The criminal can be caught boarding the plane, with a suitcase containing US$100mn of someone elses cash, with his mistress holding on to his arm, he will look into the camera with his most genuine 'Tony Blair look of sincerity' and say "What we have here is a misunderstanding.... " You make up the rest of the excuse, there is a million of them.
So yes, an outright confession, "It was me, I chopped down the apple tree" is so against the current socio-political culture it was almost too good to be true. Especially given the pedigree of this perp, the CEO of one of the busiest and most prominent financial exchanges in the world. After his confession the world goes into shock, especially the Jewish world, since affluent members of this community had previously flocked to his door, seeking his world famous high returns. Since his arrest the press is full of people extolling his virtues as a decent human-being and "who would ever of believed it?". It would be so easy for this man to deny any wrongdoing because he could bring out an army of good character witnesses and he could just point at some suspect-looking goy in his hedge fund organisation to lay the blame on.
So a truly heartwarming confession. And it was apparently made to his 2 sons, both of whom who worked for the fund and who had absolutely no idea that this fraud was being perpetrated, until such time as this astounding confession.
But then I sta rted to look more closely at the mix of investors who have lost money. About half of them are professional investing institutions. Look at this quote from the UK's Daily Mail newspaper (online [link to www.dailymail.co.uk]
"Full details of the exact losses are yet to emerge. Hedge funds and banks have so far admitted to having around £16billion with Madoff - only half of the total that is reckone d to have been lost. Some of the biggest casualties are Swiss private banks, which have taken hits amounting to about £2.5billion. Spanish bank Santander had £2.1billion of client money with Madoff. HSBC has admitted to lending about £600million to funds who wanted to use debt to gear up their positions with Madoff. RAB capital, the hedge fund that lost huge sums on investing in Northern Rock, has revealed that it is exposed to Madoff to the tune of around £6million."
Now the confession does not look right at all.
It is possible to accept the idea of a Ponzi scheme be played on members of the public, who are ignorant of how such schemes are worked, in fact the schemes are targetted specifica lly at such people. Yet Madoff would have us believe that he managed to convince professional investment companies to put their funds with him without any due diligence being performed. This is clearly nonsense.
I have a cted as a professional consultant to major EC and US financial institutions on corporate and institutional credit risk and the idea that anyone in HSBC or Santander could authorise large investment without the internal checks and controls being employed is almost impossible. To try and believe that EVERY institution that invested in Madoff circumvented their internal control procedures IS impossible.
Why is this important? Simple. If someone approaches the HSBC credit risk team, for instance, with a view to making a loan or investing a sum as large as £600m to what is ultimately a single institution (therefore a single counterparty credit exposure) a significant number hoops would have to be jumped through. Firstly there is the credit officer competence limit, which is the maximum amount that a single credit officer may be allowed to authorise. More than his/her limit must be referred up the credit approval food chain. In an institution like HSBC or Santander etc, £600bn or US$1bn will have been referred to the very top of the food chain, the banks' credit committees at the board level. This is an enormous sum and no lacky is going to be able to approve this by themselves, ever.
When the credit committee are called together to review an application, everything is ready prepared for them, so they can cut to the chase . The lower levels of the credit approval process will have prepared a summary of all the application documentation, included in the meeting bundle, with the strengths, weaknesses, and other important credit risk points. This application will usually contain a set of audited accounts going back a minimum of 3 years and most likely 5 years. There will be a full credit breakdown of the investment profile of the business, Madoff's hedge fund, looking at how the fund obtains its returns; investment assets and investment methodology. After the committee is satisfied that all the issues and concerns have been addressed they will vote on the approval or otherwise.
So there is no way that Madoff could have been pulling a scam. It would have stood out as clear as day to professional financial analysts, whose only job in life is to examine the management of companies and their reports and accounts, to make sure that all is in order. Its their job, its what they do. They are the world experts in spotting anomalies. The idea that all these professionals in all these companies were all duped is absolute nonsense. It is highly improbable that one such evaluation process could have been fooled, but all of them, never. A Ponzi scheme is easy to spot when you have the audited accounts and the full range of investment assets and investment metodologies employed.
Also, this scam avoided the attention of all the funds employees; accountants, traders, auditors and the US regulators, all of whom are also financial professionals.
This again is absolute nonsense. A ny company that I have ever worked for would have known internally that such business was being done, because they are all involved. For instance, a trader goes on buying equities from the worlds stock exchanges that go down in price for 5 continuous years, but the company just keeps giving him more money to top up the trading, continues paying his salary and even annual bonus. Absolute rubbish. But assuming this actually did happen, the market risk team would have been watching these losses, as would have the accountants. It is not possible to hide things like this internally for very long, months at the most; 20+ years, NEVER.
So why plead guilty? The answer is simple. Look on the net and you will see that because this case is being labelled a fraud, it would appear that investors are going to be able to claim their investment back under the US government's financial fraud protection scheme. A judge has already given his approval in principle for compensation, w ithout any evidence having been presented and financial fraud being demonstrated in a court of law. And it would appear that there will never be such a demonstration in a court of law. Why? It would appear that all the funds financial records are mostly "missing" (rather like Dov Zakheim's US$1.4tn) and those few records that do survive are in a terrible mess.
However, since the guy has pleaded guilty we do not need to demonstrate the fraud, because he says he is guilty.
And look further on the net and you will see that these "victims" have also been told by the US tax authorities that they will probably also be entitled to claim back some taxes on these defrauded sums.
Rather than saying this hedge fund has gone bust, due to its choice of investment assets and investment methologies, a scenario which is highly probable in the current financial paradigm, since all the professionals are predicting that at least 30% of all hedge funds are about to fail, more than 700 of them, the CEO chooses to fess up to fraud. If the CEO admits the fund has gone bust, then all those wealthy members of the Jewish community get nothing, but if the CEO admits to fraud they get their money back as compensation from the US tax payer, just as they are also drawing money back from the tax payers with the other hand.
And, as can be seen at the Daily Mail link above, the investors in this fund only get to litigate the fund directors against Lloyds insurers in London for even more compensation. Done properly the compensation could end up paying out far more than the original fund returns (yes this is sarcasm, it was bound to creep in eventually in yet another swindle like this).
Would that I could believe that Madoff were a good guy who slipped and then became repentant. But given the facts, this simply cannot be true.
by Muhammad Rafeeq (18th-Dec-08)
At first sight it was extremely refreshing. A white-collar financial crook raising his hands and pleading guilty to his financial crime. Th is has to be almost a first. Usually financial criminals when caught in the most obvious of wrong-doing plead 'not guilty'. The criminal can be caught boarding the plane, with a suitcase containing US$100mn of someone elses cash, with his mistress holding on to his arm, he will look into the camera with his most genuine 'Tony Blair look of sincerity' and say "What we have here is a misunderstanding.... " You make up the rest of the excuse, there is a million of them.
So yes, an outright confession, "It was me, I chopped down the apple tree" is so against the current socio-political culture it was almost too good to be true. Especially given the pedigree of this perp, the CEO of one of the busiest and most prominent financial exchanges in the world. After his confession the world goes into shock, especially the Jewish world, since affluent members of this community had previously flocked to his door, seeking his world famous high returns. Since his arrest the press is full of people extolling his virtues as a decent human-being and "who would ever of believed it?". It would be so easy for this man to deny any wrongdoing because he could bring out an army of good character witnesses and he could just point at some suspect-looking goy in his hedge fund organisation to lay the blame on.
So a truly heartwarming confession. And it was apparently made to his 2 sons, both of whom who worked for the fund and who had absolutely no idea that this fraud was being perpetrated, until such time as this astounding confession.
But then I sta rted to look more closely at the mix of investors who have lost money. About half of them are professional investing institutions. Look at this quote from the UK's Daily Mail newspaper (online [link to www.dailymail.co.uk]
"Full details of the exact losses are yet to emerge. Hedge funds and banks have so far admitted to having around £16billion with Madoff - only half of the total that is reckone d to have been lost. Some of the biggest casualties are Swiss private banks, which have taken hits amounting to about £2.5billion. Spanish bank Santander had £2.1billion of client money with Madoff. HSBC has admitted to lending about £600million to funds who wanted to use debt to gear up their positions with Madoff. RAB capital, the hedge fund that lost huge sums on investing in Northern Rock, has revealed that it is exposed to Madoff to the tune of around £6million."
Now the confession does not look right at all.
It is possible to accept the idea of a Ponzi scheme be played on members of the public, who are ignorant of how such schemes are worked, in fact the schemes are targetted specifica lly at such people. Yet Madoff would have us believe that he managed to convince professional investment companies to put their funds with him without any due diligence being performed. This is clearly nonsense.
I have a cted as a professional consultant to major EC and US financial institutions on corporate and institutional credit risk and the idea that anyone in HSBC or Santander could authorise large investment without the internal checks and controls being employed is almost impossible. To try and believe that EVERY institution that invested in Madoff circumvented their internal control procedures IS impossible.
Why is this important? Simple. If someone approaches the HSBC credit risk team, for instance, with a view to making a loan or investing a sum as large as £600m to what is ultimately a single institution (therefore a single counterparty credit exposure) a significant number hoops would have to be jumped through. Firstly there is the credit officer competence limit, which is the maximum amount that a single credit officer may be allowed to authorise. More than his/her limit must be referred up the credit approval food chain. In an institution like HSBC or Santander etc, £600bn or US$1bn will have been referred to the very top of the food chain, the banks' credit committees at the board level. This is an enormous sum and no lacky is going to be able to approve this by themselves, ever.
When the credit committee are called together to review an application, everything is ready prepared for them, so they can cut to the chase . The lower levels of the credit approval process will have prepared a summary of all the application documentation, included in the meeting bundle, with the strengths, weaknesses, and other important credit risk points. This application will usually contain a set of audited accounts going back a minimum of 3 years and most likely 5 years. There will be a full credit breakdown of the investment profile of the business, Madoff's hedge fund, looking at how the fund obtains its returns; investment assets and investment methodology. After the committee is satisfied that all the issues and concerns have been addressed they will vote on the approval or otherwise.
So there is no way that Madoff could have been pulling a scam. It would have stood out as clear as day to professional financial analysts, whose only job in life is to examine the management of companies and their reports and accounts, to make sure that all is in order. Its their job, its what they do. They are the world experts in spotting anomalies. The idea that all these professionals in all these companies were all duped is absolute nonsense. It is highly improbable that one such evaluation process could have been fooled, but all of them, never. A Ponzi scheme is easy to spot when you have the audited accounts and the full range of investment assets and investment metodologies employed.
Also, this scam avoided the attention of all the funds employees; accountants, traders, auditors and the US regulators, all of whom are also financial professionals.
This again is absolute nonsense. A ny company that I have ever worked for would have known internally that such business was being done, because they are all involved. For instance, a trader goes on buying equities from the worlds stock exchanges that go down in price for 5 continuous years, but the company just keeps giving him more money to top up the trading, continues paying his salary and even annual bonus. Absolute rubbish. But assuming this actually did happen, the market risk team would have been watching these losses, as would have the accountants. It is not possible to hide things like this internally for very long, months at the most; 20+ years, NEVER.
So why plead guilty? The answer is simple. Look on the net and you will see that because this case is being labelled a fraud, it would appear that investors are going to be able to claim their investment back under the US government's financial fraud protection scheme. A judge has already given his approval in principle for compensation, w ithout any evidence having been presented and financial fraud being demonstrated in a court of law. And it would appear that there will never be such a demonstration in a court of law. Why? It would appear that all the funds financial records are mostly "missing" (rather like Dov Zakheim's US$1.4tn) and those few records that do survive are in a terrible mess.
However, since the guy has pleaded guilty we do not need to demonstrate the fraud, because he says he is guilty.
And look further on the net and you will see that these "victims" have also been told by the US tax authorities that they will probably also be entitled to claim back some taxes on these defrauded sums.
Rather than saying this hedge fund has gone bust, due to its choice of investment assets and investment methologies, a scenario which is highly probable in the current financial paradigm, since all the professionals are predicting that at least 30% of all hedge funds are about to fail, more than 700 of them, the CEO chooses to fess up to fraud. If the CEO admits the fund has gone bust, then all those wealthy members of the Jewish community get nothing, but if the CEO admits to fraud they get their money back as compensation from the US tax payer, just as they are also drawing money back from the tax payers with the other hand.
And, as can be seen at the Daily Mail link above, the investors in this fund only get to litigate the fund directors against Lloyds insurers in London for even more compensation. Done properly the compensation could end up paying out far more than the original fund returns (yes this is sarcasm, it was bound to creep in eventually in yet another swindle like this).
Would that I could believe that Madoff were a good guy who slipped and then became repentant. But given the facts, this simply cannot be true.
01-04-2009, 04:15 AM
#13
I feel the need...
An American Tragedy
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State." (Joseph Goebbels)
http://www.silverbearcafe.com/privat...8/tradegy.html
.....The Madoff affair illustrates that rich people can be just as gullible and foolish as poor people. In their quest for social status and fitting in with the "smart" money crowd, affluent people all over the country put their life savings into the hands of this criminal. No investor can generate positive returns using the same strategy through all market cycles. Warning bells should have been going off. Diversification is the golden rule of investing. The foolishness of these people putting every dime with one man is maddening. Mr. Madoff’s nickname, "the Jewish T-bill", is fitting today with T-bills providing negative yields.
Another American Tragedy is in the making. A much bigger Ponzi scheme that will shock every person in America is still operating. It is being conducted by the U.S. government and your elected politician leaders. It is called our National Budget. With most of our spending on automatic pilot, the aging of the baby boom generation will put tremendous strain on our economic system in the coming years. As you can see, Medicare costs will explode over the next 40 years. The increasing debt will result in interest payments on the debt becoming the largest expenditure in the federal budget. The longer we wait to address this unavoidable train wreck, the more likely it will result in generational war between the baby boomers and younger generations. Mandatory spending for agriculture subsidies, unemployment benefits, civilian and military pensions and health benefits continues to grow. The ponzi aspect of this system is that we continue to pay out benefits by printing money. We are obligated to pay $53 trillion that we do not have. Social Security has run at a surplus since its inception. The money is not in some lockbox. Your trustworthy leaders have spent all of the surpluses ever generated by Social Security to keep the ponzi scheme going.....
Another American Tragedy is in the making. A much bigger Ponzi scheme that will shock every person in America is still operating. It is being conducted by the U.S. government and your elected politician leaders. It is called our National Budget. With most of our spending on automatic pilot, the aging of the baby boom generation will put tremendous strain on our economic system in the coming years. As you can see, Medicare costs will explode over the next 40 years. The increasing debt will result in interest payments on the debt becoming the largest expenditure in the federal budget. The longer we wait to address this unavoidable train wreck, the more likely it will result in generational war between the baby boomers and younger generations. Mandatory spending for agriculture subsidies, unemployment benefits, civilian and military pensions and health benefits continues to grow. The ponzi aspect of this system is that we continue to pay out benefits by printing money. We are obligated to pay $53 trillion that we do not have. Social Security has run at a surplus since its inception. The money is not in some lockbox. Your trustworthy leaders have spent all of the surpluses ever generated by Social Security to keep the ponzi scheme going.....
01-04-2009, 01:13 PM
#14
Rooting for Acura
Thread Starter
iTrader: (1)
THE MADOFF DOUBLE-BLUFF
by Muhammad Rafeeq (18th-Dec-08)
At first sight it was extremely refreshing. A white-collar financial crook raising his hands and pleading guilty to his financial crime. Th is has to be almost a first. Usually financial criminals when caught in the most obvious of wrong-doing plead 'not guilty'. The criminal can be caught boarding the plane, with a suitcase containing US$100mn of someone elses cash, with his mistress holding on to his arm, he will look into the camera with his most genuine 'Tony Blair look of sincerity' and say "What we have here is a misunderstanding.... " You make up the rest of the excuse, there is a million of them.
So yes, an outright confession, "It was me, I chopped down the apple tree" is so against the current socio-political culture it was almost too good to be true. Especially given the pedigree of this perp, the CEO of one of the busiest and most prominent financial exchanges in the world. After his confession the world goes into shock, especially the Jewish world, since affluent members of this community had previously flocked to his door, seeking his world famous high returns. Since his arrest the press is full of people extolling his virtues as a decent human-being and "who would ever of believed it?". It would be so easy for this man to deny any wrongdoing because he could bring out an army of good character witnesses and he could just point at some suspect-looking goy in his hedge fund organisation to lay the blame on.
So a truly heartwarming confession. And it was apparently made to his 2 sons, both of whom who worked for the fund and who had absolutely no idea that this fraud was being perpetrated, until such time as this astounding confession.
But then I sta rted to look more closely at the mix of investors who have lost money. About half of them are professional investing institutions. Look at this quote from the UK's Daily Mail newspaper (online [link to www.dailymail.co.uk]
"Full details of the exact losses are yet to emerge. Hedge funds and banks have so far admitted to having around £16billion with Madoff - only half of the total that is reckone d to have been lost. Some of the biggest casualties are Swiss private banks, which have taken hits amounting to about £2.5billion. Spanish bank Santander had £2.1billion of client money with Madoff. HSBC has admitted to lending about £600million to funds who wanted to use debt to gear up their positions with Madoff. RAB capital, the hedge fund that lost huge sums on investing in Northern Rock, has revealed that it is exposed to Madoff to the tune of around £6million."
Now the confession does not look right at all.
It is possible to accept the idea of a Ponzi scheme be played on members of the public, who are ignorant of how such schemes are worked, in fact the schemes are targetted specifica lly at such people. Yet Madoff would have us believe that he managed to convince professional investment companies to put their funds with him without any due diligence being performed. This is clearly nonsense.
I have a cted as a professional consultant to major EC and US financial institutions on corporate and institutional credit risk and the idea that anyone in HSBC or Santander could authorise large investment without the internal checks and controls being employed is almost impossible. To try and believe that EVERY institution that invested in Madoff circumvented their internal control procedures IS impossible.
Why is this important? Simple. If someone approaches the HSBC credit risk team, for instance, with a view to making a loan or investing a sum as large as £600m to what is ultimately a single institution (therefore a single counterparty credit exposure) a significant number hoops would have to be jumped through. Firstly there is the credit officer competence limit, which is the maximum amount that a single credit officer may be allowed to authorise. More than his/her limit must be referred up the credit approval food chain. In an institution like HSBC or Santander etc, £600bn or US$1bn will have been referred to the very top of the food chain, the banks' credit committees at the board level. This is an enormous sum and no lacky is going to be able to approve this by themselves, ever.
When the credit committee are called together to review an application, everything is ready prepared for them, so they can cut to the chase . The lower levels of the credit approval process will have prepared a summary of all the application documentation, included in the meeting bundle, with the strengths, weaknesses, and other important credit risk points. This application will usually contain a set of audited accounts going back a minimum of 3 years and most likely 5 years. There will be a full credit breakdown of the investment profile of the business, Madoff's hedge fund, looking at how the fund obtains its returns; investment assets and investment methodology. After the committee is satisfied that all the issues and concerns have been addressed they will vote on the approval or otherwise.
So there is no way that Madoff could have been pulling a scam. It would have stood out as clear as day to professional financial analysts, whose only job in life is to examine the management of companies and their reports and accounts, to make sure that all is in order. Its their job, its what they do. They are the world experts in spotting anomalies. The idea that all these professionals in all these companies were all duped is absolute nonsense. It is highly improbable that one such evaluation process could have been fooled, but all of them, never. A Ponzi scheme is easy to spot when you have the audited accounts and the full range of investment assets and investment metodologies employed.
Also, this scam avoided the attention of all the funds employees; accountants, traders, auditors and the US regulators, all of whom are also financial professionals.
This again is absolute nonsense. A ny company that I have ever worked for would have known internally that such business was being done, because they are all involved. For instance, a trader goes on buying equities from the worlds stock exchanges that go down in price for 5 continuous years, but the company just keeps giving him more money to top up the trading, continues paying his salary and even annual bonus. Absolute rubbish. But assuming this actually did happen, the market risk team would have been watching these losses, as would have the accountants. It is not possible to hide things like this internally for very long, months at the most; 20+ years, NEVER.
So why plead guilty? The answer is simple. Look on the net and you will see that because this case is being labelled a fraud, it would appear that investors are going to be able to claim their investment back under the US government's financial fraud protection scheme. A judge has already given his approval in principle for compensation, w ithout any evidence having been presented and financial fraud being demonstrated in a court of law. And it would appear that there will never be such a demonstration in a court of law. Why? It would appear that all the funds financial records are mostly "missing" (rather like Dov Zakheim's US$1.4tn) and those few records that do survive are in a terrible mess.
However, since the guy has pleaded guilty we do not need to demonstrate the fraud, because he says he is guilty.
And look further on the net and you will see that these "victims" have also been told by the US tax authorities that they will probably also be entitled to claim back some taxes on these defrauded sums.
Rather than saying this hedge fund has gone bust, due to its choice of investment assets and investment methologies, a scenario which is highly probable in the current financial paradigm, since all the professionals are predicting that at least 30% of all hedge funds are about to fail, more than 700 of them, the CEO chooses to fess up to fraud. If the CEO admits the fund has gone bust, then all those wealthy members of the Jewish community get nothing, but if the CEO admits to fraud they get their money back as compensation from the US tax payer, just as they are also drawing money back from the tax payers with the other hand.
And, as can be seen at the Daily Mail link above, the investors in this fund only get to litigate the fund directors against Lloyds insurers in London for even more compensation. Done properly the compensation could end up paying out far more than the original fund returns (yes this is sarcasm, it was bound to creep in eventually in yet another swindle like this).
Would that I could believe that Madoff were a good guy who slipped and then became repentant. But given the facts, this simply cannot be true.
by Muhammad Rafeeq (18th-Dec-08)
At first sight it was extremely refreshing. A white-collar financial crook raising his hands and pleading guilty to his financial crime. Th is has to be almost a first. Usually financial criminals when caught in the most obvious of wrong-doing plead 'not guilty'. The criminal can be caught boarding the plane, with a suitcase containing US$100mn of someone elses cash, with his mistress holding on to his arm, he will look into the camera with his most genuine 'Tony Blair look of sincerity' and say "What we have here is a misunderstanding.... " You make up the rest of the excuse, there is a million of them.
So yes, an outright confession, "It was me, I chopped down the apple tree" is so against the current socio-political culture it was almost too good to be true. Especially given the pedigree of this perp, the CEO of one of the busiest and most prominent financial exchanges in the world. After his confession the world goes into shock, especially the Jewish world, since affluent members of this community had previously flocked to his door, seeking his world famous high returns. Since his arrest the press is full of people extolling his virtues as a decent human-being and "who would ever of believed it?". It would be so easy for this man to deny any wrongdoing because he could bring out an army of good character witnesses and he could just point at some suspect-looking goy in his hedge fund organisation to lay the blame on.
So a truly heartwarming confession. And it was apparently made to his 2 sons, both of whom who worked for the fund and who had absolutely no idea that this fraud was being perpetrated, until such time as this astounding confession.
But then I sta rted to look more closely at the mix of investors who have lost money. About half of them are professional investing institutions. Look at this quote from the UK's Daily Mail newspaper (online [link to www.dailymail.co.uk]
"Full details of the exact losses are yet to emerge. Hedge funds and banks have so far admitted to having around £16billion with Madoff - only half of the total that is reckone d to have been lost. Some of the biggest casualties are Swiss private banks, which have taken hits amounting to about £2.5billion. Spanish bank Santander had £2.1billion of client money with Madoff. HSBC has admitted to lending about £600million to funds who wanted to use debt to gear up their positions with Madoff. RAB capital, the hedge fund that lost huge sums on investing in Northern Rock, has revealed that it is exposed to Madoff to the tune of around £6million."
Now the confession does not look right at all.
It is possible to accept the idea of a Ponzi scheme be played on members of the public, who are ignorant of how such schemes are worked, in fact the schemes are targetted specifica lly at such people. Yet Madoff would have us believe that he managed to convince professional investment companies to put their funds with him without any due diligence being performed. This is clearly nonsense.
I have a cted as a professional consultant to major EC and US financial institutions on corporate and institutional credit risk and the idea that anyone in HSBC or Santander could authorise large investment without the internal checks and controls being employed is almost impossible. To try and believe that EVERY institution that invested in Madoff circumvented their internal control procedures IS impossible.
Why is this important? Simple. If someone approaches the HSBC credit risk team, for instance, with a view to making a loan or investing a sum as large as £600m to what is ultimately a single institution (therefore a single counterparty credit exposure) a significant number hoops would have to be jumped through. Firstly there is the credit officer competence limit, which is the maximum amount that a single credit officer may be allowed to authorise. More than his/her limit must be referred up the credit approval food chain. In an institution like HSBC or Santander etc, £600bn or US$1bn will have been referred to the very top of the food chain, the banks' credit committees at the board level. This is an enormous sum and no lacky is going to be able to approve this by themselves, ever.
When the credit committee are called together to review an application, everything is ready prepared for them, so they can cut to the chase . The lower levels of the credit approval process will have prepared a summary of all the application documentation, included in the meeting bundle, with the strengths, weaknesses, and other important credit risk points. This application will usually contain a set of audited accounts going back a minimum of 3 years and most likely 5 years. There will be a full credit breakdown of the investment profile of the business, Madoff's hedge fund, looking at how the fund obtains its returns; investment assets and investment methodology. After the committee is satisfied that all the issues and concerns have been addressed they will vote on the approval or otherwise.
So there is no way that Madoff could have been pulling a scam. It would have stood out as clear as day to professional financial analysts, whose only job in life is to examine the management of companies and their reports and accounts, to make sure that all is in order. Its their job, its what they do. They are the world experts in spotting anomalies. The idea that all these professionals in all these companies were all duped is absolute nonsense. It is highly improbable that one such evaluation process could have been fooled, but all of them, never. A Ponzi scheme is easy to spot when you have the audited accounts and the full range of investment assets and investment metodologies employed.
Also, this scam avoided the attention of all the funds employees; accountants, traders, auditors and the US regulators, all of whom are also financial professionals.
This again is absolute nonsense. A ny company that I have ever worked for would have known internally that such business was being done, because they are all involved. For instance, a trader goes on buying equities from the worlds stock exchanges that go down in price for 5 continuous years, but the company just keeps giving him more money to top up the trading, continues paying his salary and even annual bonus. Absolute rubbish. But assuming this actually did happen, the market risk team would have been watching these losses, as would have the accountants. It is not possible to hide things like this internally for very long, months at the most; 20+ years, NEVER.
So why plead guilty? The answer is simple. Look on the net and you will see that because this case is being labelled a fraud, it would appear that investors are going to be able to claim their investment back under the US government's financial fraud protection scheme. A judge has already given his approval in principle for compensation, w ithout any evidence having been presented and financial fraud being demonstrated in a court of law. And it would appear that there will never be such a demonstration in a court of law. Why? It would appear that all the funds financial records are mostly "missing" (rather like Dov Zakheim's US$1.4tn) and those few records that do survive are in a terrible mess.
However, since the guy has pleaded guilty we do not need to demonstrate the fraud, because he says he is guilty.
And look further on the net and you will see that these "victims" have also been told by the US tax authorities that they will probably also be entitled to claim back some taxes on these defrauded sums.
Rather than saying this hedge fund has gone bust, due to its choice of investment assets and investment methologies, a scenario which is highly probable in the current financial paradigm, since all the professionals are predicting that at least 30% of all hedge funds are about to fail, more than 700 of them, the CEO chooses to fess up to fraud. If the CEO admits the fund has gone bust, then all those wealthy members of the Jewish community get nothing, but if the CEO admits to fraud they get their money back as compensation from the US tax payer, just as they are also drawing money back from the tax payers with the other hand.
And, as can be seen at the Daily Mail link above, the investors in this fund only get to litigate the fund directors against Lloyds insurers in London for even more compensation. Done properly the compensation could end up paying out far more than the original fund returns (yes this is sarcasm, it was bound to creep in eventually in yet another swindle like this).
Would that I could believe that Madoff were a good guy who slipped and then became repentant. But given the facts, this simply cannot be true.
Last edited by knight rider; 01-04-2009 at 01:17 PM.
01-04-2009, 04:00 PM
#15
I feel the need...
U.S. could be facing debt 'time bomb' this year
Investors' thirst for American securities could finally be quenched
With President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats considering a massive spending package aimed at pulling the nation out of recession, the national debt is projected to jump by as much as $2 trillion this year, an unprecedented increase that could test the world's appetite for financing U.S. government spending.
For now, investors are frantically stuffing money into the relative safety of the U.S. Treasury, which has come to serve as the world's mattress in troubled times. Interest rates on Treasury bills have plummeted to historic lows, with some short-term investors literally giving the government money for free.....
For now, investors are frantically stuffing money into the relative safety of the U.S. Treasury, which has come to serve as the world's mattress in troubled times. Interest rates on Treasury bills have plummeted to historic lows, with some short-term investors literally giving the government money for free.....
02-08-2009, 04:54 PM
#17
I feel the need...
Madoff's Mayhem
An alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme has wrecked lives and institutions from Palm Beach to Paris. It has also blurred the line between victims and perpetrators.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/market...09_story1.html
For Swiss banker Werner Wolfer, the memory of his first encounter with one of Bernard Madoff's emissaries nine years ago is as clear as the waters of Lake Geneva.
To hear Patrick Littaye talk, the Wall Street money manager could walk on those waters. "It was like a religion," Wolfer, 57, says of the promise of steady returns, which would be echoed by other acolytes. "These people firmly believed in the story....."
To hear Patrick Littaye talk, the Wall Street money manager could walk on those waters. "It was like a religion," Wolfer, 57, says of the promise of steady returns, which would be echoed by other acolytes. "These people firmly believed in the story....."
05-05-2009, 04:17 PM
#18
I feel the need...
How Bernie did it
Madoff is behind bars and isn't talking. But a Fortune investigation uncovers secrets of his massive swindle.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/04/24/news...ion=2009042412
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- The employees were transfixed. Standing on the mid-Manhattan trading floor of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities in late 2007, a half-dozen staffers stared up at the ceiling-mounted TV as CNBC aired a report on the mysterious Palm Beach death of a hedge fund manager who had been leading a double life. The police, it appeared, were even considering the possibility that he had been murdered. "Bernie," someone casually asked as Madoff happened to walk by, "have you heard of this guy?"
Madoff glanced at the screen, blanched, and exploded: "Why the fuck would I be interested in some shit like that?" The employees recoiled. "I never saw him react like that before," says a Madoff trader who witnessed the outburst. "It obviously hit a nerve."
Such a loss of control was highly out of character for the boss. But the traders didn't know at the time that Madoff had an extraordinarily elaborate second life going on just two floors below them, one that was building toward an epic, and inevitable, explosion......
Madoff glanced at the screen, blanched, and exploded: "Why the fuck would I be interested in some shit like that?" The employees recoiled. "I never saw him react like that before," says a Madoff trader who witnessed the outburst. "It obviously hit a nerve."
Such a loss of control was highly out of character for the boss. But the traders didn't know at the time that Madoff had an extraordinarily elaborate second life going on just two floors below them, one that was building toward an epic, and inevitable, explosion......
07-01-2009, 03:25 PM
#20
I feel the need...
Madoff Lacks What Skilling, Ebbers, Fastow Had
Bernard Ebbers stood before a federal judge in New York in 2005 to learn whether he would be spending the rest of his life in prison. The judge already had a stack of letters from friends and family members, even a Mississippi sheriff, attesting to Ebbers’s good deeds, good heart and generous contributions.
To needy students, he anonymously gave scholarships. He helped build school gyms and claimed no glory. His lawyer said he has given about $100 million to various causes.
Before the sentencing of Enron boogeyman Andrew Fastow in 2006, some 50 people had written the judge to urge mercy. At the hearing in Houston, those who pleaded for leniency included his prosecutor, grateful for Fastow’s essential help in nailing his cohorts.
Even some of Enron’s biggest investors, meaning biggest losers, showed up on his side because Fastow was pointing them toward the deep pockets of banks involved in the fraud.....
To needy students, he anonymously gave scholarships. He helped build school gyms and claimed no glory. His lawyer said he has given about $100 million to various causes.
Before the sentencing of Enron boogeyman Andrew Fastow in 2006, some 50 people had written the judge to urge mercy. At the hearing in Houston, those who pleaded for leniency included his prosecutor, grateful for Fastow’s essential help in nailing his cohorts.
Even some of Enron’s biggest investors, meaning biggest losers, showed up on his side because Fastow was pointing them toward the deep pockets of banks involved in the fraud.....
02-03-2011, 06:43 PM
#21
I feel the need...
JPMorgan Hid Doubts on Madoff, Documents Suggest
Senior executives at JPMorgan Chase expressed serious doubts about the legitimacy of Bernard L. Madoff’s investment business more than 18 months before his Ponzi scheme collapsed but continued to do business with him, according to internal bank documents made public in a lawsuit on Thursday.
On June 15, 2007, an obviously high-level risk management officer for Chase’s investment bank sent a lunchtime e-mail to colleagues to report that another bank executive “just told me that there is a well-known cloud over the head of Madoff and that his returns are speculated to be part of a Ponzi scheme.”
Even before that, a top private banking executive had been consistently steering clients away from investments linked to Mr. Madoff because his “Oz-like signals” were “too difficult to ignore.” And the first Chase risk analyst to look at a Madoff feeder fund, in February 2006, reported to his superiors that its returns did not make sense because it did far better than the securities that were supposedly in its portfolio.
Despite those suspicions and many more, the bank allowed Mr. Madoff to move billions of dollars of investors’ cash in and out of his Chase bank accounts right up until the day of his arrest in December 2008 — although by then, the bank had withdrawn all but $35 million of the $276 million it had invested in Madoff-linked hedge funds , according to the litigation.....
On June 15, 2007, an obviously high-level risk management officer for Chase’s investment bank sent a lunchtime e-mail to colleagues to report that another bank executive “just told me that there is a well-known cloud over the head of Madoff and that his returns are speculated to be part of a Ponzi scheme.”
Even before that, a top private banking executive had been consistently steering clients away from investments linked to Mr. Madoff because his “Oz-like signals” were “too difficult to ignore.” And the first Chase risk analyst to look at a Madoff feeder fund, in February 2006, reported to his superiors that its returns did not make sense because it did far better than the securities that were supposedly in its portfolio.
Despite those suspicions and many more, the bank allowed Mr. Madoff to move billions of dollars of investors’ cash in and out of his Chase bank accounts right up until the day of his arrest in December 2008 — although by then, the bank had withdrawn all but $35 million of the $276 million it had invested in Madoff-linked hedge funds , according to the litigation.....
02-28-2011, 05:03 PM
#22
I feel the need...
Bernie Madoff: 'The Whole Government is a Ponzi Scheme'; 'The Whole New Regulatory Re
Ponzi? I guess it takes one to know one....
I am not sure what to feel, when I find myself in agreement with so much of what Bernie Madoff says in a fresh interview with NY Magazine. I guess when you have nothing left to lose, you can be brutally honest. Thankfully our regulatory bodies are captured, our politicians are bought and paid for, and our circus and bread goes full steam ahead. So nothing to see here....
I am not sure what to feel, when I find myself in agreement with so much of what Bernie Madoff says in a fresh interview with NY Magazine. I guess when you have nothing left to lose, you can be brutally honest. Thankfully our regulatory bodies are captured, our politicians are bought and paid for, and our circus and bread goes full steam ahead. So nothing to see here....
04-14-2011, 06:04 PM
#23
I feel the need...
From behind bars, Madoff spins his story
We are cruising through North Carolina on a foggy morning in late March, heading up to its rural north. Our route takes us through swampland shrouded in a thick mist; spruce trees and an occasional pink dogwood line the interstate. Butner, population 6,391, is our destination.
The town is home to a vast federal prison complex that includes a hospital, a minimum security unit and two medium security facilities. Since July 14 2009, arguably the most notorious inmate at FCI Butner Medium I has been Bernard Lawrence Madoff, the disgraced New York financier who orchestrated a $65bn Ponzi scheme, among the biggest financial frauds of all time. He is prisoner 61727-054.
When the Madoff scandal broke in 2008, a Financial Times reporter learnt that two acquaintances of his were close to the Madoffs and passed along an invitation for any member of the family to speak with the paper. For more than a year, there was silence. Then, early last December, the reporter received an e-mail from Madoff himself. Following sporadic correspondence, and at very short notice, a message came from the prison: Madoff would meet with the FT.....
The town is home to a vast federal prison complex that includes a hospital, a minimum security unit and two medium security facilities. Since July 14 2009, arguably the most notorious inmate at FCI Butner Medium I has been Bernard Lawrence Madoff, the disgraced New York financier who orchestrated a $65bn Ponzi scheme, among the biggest financial frauds of all time. He is prisoner 61727-054.
When the Madoff scandal broke in 2008, a Financial Times reporter learnt that two acquaintances of his were close to the Madoffs and passed along an invitation for any member of the family to speak with the paper. For more than a year, there was silence. Then, early last December, the reporter received an e-mail from Madoff himself. Following sporadic correspondence, and at very short notice, a message came from the prison: Madoff would meet with the FT.....
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