1980s
Bernard Madoff, a renowned Wall Street trader, initiates a scheme to defraud his investment clients. He eventually accepts billions of dollars from individual investors, charitable organisations, pension funds, hedge funds, and others. He claims that his sophisticated trading and hedging strategy will produce investment gains in all market conditions, though securities regulators later say he never traded any shares for client accounts.
May 2000
Massachusetts financial analyst Harry Markopolos tries to alert financial regulators to Madoff s fraud, saying his alleged trading strategy could never yield such continuously positive returns. The US securities and exchange commission ignores his warning several more times over the next few years.
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How Bernie Madoff Took His Family Down
His financial fraud destroyed thousands of lives, including those of his wife and sons. A look inside the steep rise and tragic fall of the Madoff family. Apr 14, 2021
Bernie Madoff has died in prison, according to the Associated Press. He was 82 years old. In light of the news, we re republishing our 2017 story about his financial fraud and how it destroyed thousands of lives, including those of his wife and sons.
Updated: Apr 14 2021, 15:58 ET
SIXTY years after launching a career in finance, notorious Ponzi scheme conman Bernie Madoff has died – leaving the destruction of thousands of lives in his wake.
Believed to have defrauded his victims out of a massive $64.8 billion, the ‘evil’ financial swindler’s actions even led to his own son’s suicide.
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Bernie Madoff s son Mark, right, committed suicide after the revelations of his father s crimes, and his wife Ruth stopped visiting him after their son s deathCredit: Getty - Minimum Fee
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Actors Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick were among those defrauded by MadoffCredit: Alamy
The horrific scale of Madoff’s actions is almost hard to believe, earning him a 150-year jail sentence after his arrest in 2008.
to them. is that correct? the money was all distributed, right? and everyone took their piece of it and walked off. look at this, you got this guy, this french guy who invested $1.4 billion, lost it. he killed himself. william foxton shot himself in the head. life savings lost to madoff. 2009, accused of profitting more than $7 billion, he is now dead and now mark. right. i mean, it s the people around bernie madoff almost like he had this quality that he didn t care about the repercussions of his actions. the people around him who did are the ones that are paying for it right now. one interesting thing is what hurts at least as much about losing all your money is losing other people s money, right? terry vilishay killed himself after losing billions of dollars of other people s money and mark madoff had the same issue with his best friends. thanks so much. thank you. all right, coming up straight ahead, we change gears. he s just getting paid to do