Madoff

Introduction: Bernie Madoff was a well-respected financier, his company Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, LLC was very well known and even helped launch the Nasdaq stock market. Madoffs company was well trusted and he even had celebrity cliental such a Steven Spielberg, Kevin bacon, and Kyra Sedgwick. Madoff came from a low income family however, he was able to start his company from getting a $50,000 loan from his in-laws and he using money that he had saved from side jobs such as lifeguarding and installing sprinkler systems to found his company. The successfulness of Madoff’s company came from the company’s ability to adapt to change and us modern day computer technology. As his business grew he stated employing family members to help “His younger brother, Peter, joined him in the business in 1970 and became the firm 's chief compliance officer. Later, Madoff 's sons, Andrew and Mark, also worked for the company as traders. Peter 's daughter, Shana, became a rules-compliance lawyer for the trading division of her uncle 's firm, and his son, Roger, joined the firm before his death in 2006”(Bernard Madoff Biography 2016) Unfortunately on December 11th 2008 Bernie Madoff became well known for a whole new reason. He had been accused of performing an elaborate Ponzi scheme and he had been reported to the federal authorities by his own sons. A year later he admitted to the investigators that he had lost $50 billion dollars of his investors’ money and pled guilty to 11

This “rags to riches” story began long before BMIS was ever founded; furthermore, there is an underlying story that indicates the fraudulent behavior was witnessed early in Bernie Madoff’s life. When Bernie Madoff’s was young, his parents were running an illegal brokerage firm out of their home in an effort to raise money to pay back taxes owed on the property (Biography, 2016). These impressions of his parent’s early failure and deviant behavior may have influenced the compulsive behavior and determination to accumulate wealth Bernie Madoff displayed. Traumatic events experienced as a child or young adult oftentimes influences future behavior without understanding where the inspiration came from.

Bernie Madoff began his career as an investment broker in 1960, where he legally bought and sold over-the-counter stocks not listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). From the 1960’s through the 1990’s, Madoff’s success and business grew substantially, mainly from a closed circle of known investors and friends through word of mouth. In the 1990’s Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities traded up to 10 percent of the NASDAQ on any given day. With the success of the securities business, Madoff started an illegal money-management business, promising his investors consistent returns from 10-12 percent, unheard of returns at the time, which should have tipped off most investors that something was amiss.

In December 2008, one of the largest Ponzi scheme surfaced when Mark and Andrew Madoff reported the works of their father, Bernard Madoff to the federal authorities. A Ponzi scheme is an investing scam that promises high rates of return with little risk to investors. The operator generates returns for older investors by gaining new investors. Bernard was arrested on December 11, 2008 and charged with securities fraud. He pled guilty to 11 counts and was sentenced to 150 years in federal prison-the maximum possible prison sentence. A reported $17.3 billion was invested into the scam by Bernie’s clients and only about $2.48 billion have been returned to these victims as of September 2012.

Other parties greatly impacted by Bernie Madoff’s activities were his business associates and their many clients over the decades. For example, Frank Avellino and Michael Bienes themselves funneled over three thousand clients to Madoff’s investment advisory business. Madoff had consistently advised the pair to remain unregistered in their dealings. But when the SEC accused the duo of illegally selling securities, Madoff pretended ignorance of their activities, even though he had secretly instructed them all along. For their trouble, Avellino and Bienes were forced to pay a fine of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars and shut their business down. Other notable business partners eventually left in the lurch by Madoff’s growing fraud would go on to include Jeffrey Tucker and Walter Noel of Fairfield Greenwich Group. Non-related people who had worked under Bernie Madoff also became tainted from the association following his arrest. This employee group includes those who may have had indirect dealings through Madoff subsidiaries like Cohmad Securities Corporation. However, the idea also applies to those employed directly, such as former executive assistants Elaine Solomon and Eleanor Squillari. Jeffry Picower was in industrialist and philanthropist who seemed to be a favored Madoff beneficiary, and made outlandish profits from his investments with Madoff. From 1996-2007 there were 14 instances of greater than 100% yearly returns and 25 of greater than 50%. From

Bernie Madoff, the founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, ran one of the biggest schemes in history. Bernie Madoff stole $65 billion dollars from his investors over the course of two decades. He stole money from victims such as Steven Spielberg, Kevin Bacon, Carl Shapiro, thousands of wealthy retirees, charities, and supposedly sophisticated financial firms. He convinced them to give him their money by falsely promising profits in return. He was caught in December 2008 and pleaded guilty in March 2009. He was charged with 11 counts of fraud, money laundering, perjury, and theft. He was arrested and is now facing 150 years in prison. The people caught working with him on this scheme were five of his employees , his accountant and

Bernie Madoff was one of the most prolific Ponzi-scheme artists in history. Madoff schemes netted him millions of dollars. Mr. Madoff used his BMIS Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities a New York Limited Liability company, to commit fraud, money laundering, and perjury. This is just a few things that Mr. Bernard Madoff has done to many innocent investors, who believed in Mr. Madoff, and everything he stated. Due to Mr. Madoff’s action he has changed so many people’s lives. Some have lost everything, some committed suicide, and others just humiliated by Mr. Madoff. This paper is to tell you about Mr.

Synopsis A childhood friend summed up the driving force in Bernie Madoff’s life: “Bernie wanted to be rich.” As a youngster growing up in New York City, Bernie realized that Wall Street was the greatest wealth creation machine the world had ever known. So, after graduating from college in 1960, he set his sights on joining the exclusive fraternity that ran Wall Street by organizing his own one-man brokerage firm, Madoff Securities. Madoff was one of the first individuals to recognize that computer technology provided the means to “democratize” Wall Street by establishing a system that made securities trading much more efficient and much cheaper. In the early 1970s, Madoff and several other individuals

Bernard Lawrence "Bernie" Madoff , born April 29, 1938 is an incarcerated former American stock broker, investment adviser, non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ stock market, and the admitted operator of what has been described as the largest Ponzi scheme in history.

Bernie Madoff is attributable for having one of the biggest frauds in history; he was responsible for losing billions of dollars of investors’ money for over twenty years. Known as one of the fathers of the NASDAQ, he gained credibility early and was able to prey on different affluent groups to gain billions of dollars for ‘trading’ investments. Markopolos the whistleblower of the Madoff case saw this scheme from the beginning and attempted to warn the SEC, which proved to be unsuccessful.

Bernie intently accepted large sums of funds from investors with the knowledge that he was not going to make legitimate investments with his the stackholders money. Bernie Madoff’s was conducting his business practices off of maximizing profits for himself over twenty years, which he intentialy defrauded his clients of almost sixty-five billion dollars. It is in my opinion that Bernie Madoff’s apparently knew what he was doing when he was engaging in un-ethical practices. When Madoff pled guilty to all charges in March 2009, which includes securities fraud, mail fraud, false statements, false filings with the SEC, investment advisor fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, and theft from an employee benefit plan, I believe that he completely understood that his scam would be exposed at some time.

To combat this assumption it turns out large amounts of money of the value of $300million was invested in Bernard Madoff accounts in the form of pension funds. Some officials knew that the unscathed performance of Madoff securities were too good to be true as their prices consistently climbed up in spite the financial crisis. However, still they pawned its own shareholders’ funds with the hopes of jumping on the same band wagon as Madoff and reaping further profits. Another angle at probing the case was that the CEO, directors as well as executives were only looking out for themselves. Evidently they had direct benefits in the form of handsome compensation packages for retaining high profile clients such as Madoff and Wise which

Bernard Madoff had full control of the organizational leadership of Bernard Madoff Investments Securities LLC. Madoff used charisma to convince his friends, members of elite groups, and his employees to believe in him. He tricked his clients into believing that they were investing in something special. He would often turn potential investors down, which helped Bernard in targeting the investors with more money to invest. Bernard Madoff created a system which promised high returns in the short term and was nothing but the Ponzi scheme. The system’s idea relied on funds from the new investors to pay misrepresented and extremely high returns to existing investors. He was doing this for years; convincing wealthy individuals and charities to

Introducing Bernard L. Madoff born April 29, 1938 in Queens, NY and is presently serving a one hundred fifty-year prison sentence. Who is this fraudster Bernard L Madoff also known as “Bernie” and what fraud did he commit? Bernie’s parents Ralph and Sylvia Madoff were Polish immigrants struggling and working during the Great Depression Era. In later years, his mother worked in finance as a broker-dealer for their company Gibraltar Securities. The SEC eventually forced the business to close due to non-reporting issues regarding the businesses financial condition. Around age twenty-two, Bernie Madoff started his own investment firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC and was

Operated through a complex, cryptic structure Bernie Madoff, CEO of Bernie L. Madoff Investment Securities (BMIS), perpetuated the most embellished Ponzi scheme the world has ever seen. The basis of the securities fraud that took place approximately between 1991 – 2008 was influenced by Bernie Madoff’s reliance upon an unqualified staff, outdated software, organizational seclusion, a personal halo effect, and weaknesses in the regulating body. Madoff had the confidence of the public, yet to pull off such an elaborate scheme, he relied on a startling number of family members, vital accomplices working on the illegal trading floor such as Frank D. Pascali, IT staff members, and a separate BMIS branch of international employees