safer: so this was the scene of the crime. irving picard gave us a tour of bernie madoff s 19th-floor offices, an impressive landscape of emptiness. his desk was here. safer: picard has the thankless task of finding the money, the billions that madoff scammed. (watch ticking) arlan galbraith who called himself the pigeon king convinced hundreds of american and canadian farmers there was good money to be made raising the birds for food. and everybody we talked to said this guy was he was on the up and up. nobody had a bad word to say about him. (watch ticking) stahl: welcome to 60 minutes on cnbc. i m leslie stahl. in march 2009, bernard madoff pleaded guilty to perpetrating what s believed to be the largest financial fraud in history. he received the maximum sentence for his crime, 150 years in prison. but while madoff is behind bars, there s still much we don t know about the scam which involved, by some accounts, a fraud of more than $50 billion. investigators
good? no one s that good. kroft: harry said there were only two plausible explanations: either madoff was using insider information to rack up huge profits or he was running a giant ponzi scheme. so either way, he was doing something illegal? either way, i knew he was gonna go to prison. kroft: in may of 2000, markopolos took his suspicions about bernie madoff to the boston office of the securities and exchange commission. did you have any financial motive? yes. he was a competitor of mine in 2000 to 2004 while i was still in the industry, and when someone s competing on your playing field who s a dirty player, you want him tossed off the field. kroft: he also thought he might be eligible for a sizable reward if the fraud involved insider trading, but that turned out not to be the case. in your first letter to the sec back in 2000, you re a little tentative. you say, look, i have no smoking gun. in 2000, it was more theoretical. in 2001, it was a little bi
safer: so this was the scene of the crime. irving picard gave us a tour of bernie madoff s 19th-floor offices, an impressive landscape of emptiness. his desk was here. safer: picard has the thankless task of finding the money, the billions that madoff scammed. (watch ticking) arlan galbraith who called himself the pigeon king convinced hundreds of american and canadian farmers there was good money to be made raising the birds for food. and everybody we talked to said this guy was he was on the up and up. nobody had a bad word to say about him. (watch ticking) stahl: welcome to 60 minutes on cnbc. i m leslie stahl. in march 2009, bernard madoff pleaded guilty to perpetrating what s believed to be the largest financial fraud in history. he received the maximum sentence for his crime, 150 years in prison. but while madoff is behind bars, there s still much we don t know about the scam which involved, by some accounts, a fraud of more than $50 billion. investigators
right? and where were the regulators? why didn t you find him? is the question. i blame the government. i really, truly do. tonight on frontline, correspondent martin smith unravels the madoff affair. frontline is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting. major funding is provided by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. and by reva and david logan. committed to investigative journalism as the guardian of the public interest. additional funding is provided by the park foundation. dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues. and by the frontline journalism fund, supporting investigative reporting and enterprise journalism. ( phones ringing ) smith: the news broke on december 11, 2008, and within seconds, phones were ringing around the world. ( phones ringing ) michael bienes was
smith: do you think that s right? and where were the regulators? why didn t you find him? is the question. i blame the government. i really, truly do. tonight on frontline, correspondent martin smith unravels the madoff affair. frontline is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting. major funding is provided by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. and by reva and david logan. committed to investigative journalism as the guardian of the public interest. additional funding is provided by the park foundation. dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues. and by the frontline journalism fund, supporting investigative reporting and enterprise journalism. ( phones ringing ) smith: the news broke on december 11, 2008, and within seconds, phones were ringing around the world. ( phones