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The Child Of Polish Immigrants

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Born on April 29, 1938 in Queens New York Bernie Madoff was the child of Polish immigrants. Madoff showed little interest in his early years for finance. He went on to graduate from Hofstra University and married soon after. Madoff used a modest $5,000 he had saved and $50,000 borrowed from his father0in-law to begin his investment firm in the 1960s. On December 11, 2008 it all came to an end. Madoff would go on to plead guilty to 11 felony counts including but not limited to securities fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, and perjury. Prosecutors would claim that over $170 billion was moved through Madoffs firm over the years, just prior to his arrest 65 billion dollars was being shown on the financial statements. Bernie Madoff ran what is by extreme measures the largest Ponzi scheme in world history. His investment company was multinational and at its height handled more than five percent of the total trading volume on the New York Stock Exchange. Ponzi schemes are operations in which the operator pays investor returns from new capital paid to the operator by new investors rather than from profit earned. Ponzi schemes often begin as legitimate investment businesses until the legitimate investment business fails. Much is still debated as to when Bernie Madoffs operation become a Ponzi scheme. Bernie Madoffs operation was dependent on feeder funds to bring in additional money to help the scheme along. Going back to the earliest days of the Madoff fund two

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