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The largest Ponzi scheme in history

Bennie Maddof -The man who stole $65 billion

By GazakPublished 3 years ago 7 min read
The largest Ponzi scheme in history
Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

from time to time while a lot of money gets stolen, we will’t assist however root for folks that took

it.

we might observe a latest heist that must be the closest component to a real-existence Ocean’s

eleven, while a bunch of old guys (the vintage blaggers) stole millions of bucks’ worth of precious

stones from a vault in London in 2015.

It’s idea most of the guys had been arrested, however much of the bounty stays at large.

that is seemed as one in every of the most important heists in history.

we would smile while we pay attention approximately those elderly robbers, however there’s one kind of theft that

humans nearly usually take a dim view of, and this is the monetary scam.

nowadays we're going to study the most important financial rip-off in records, in this episode

of the Infographics display, the person Who Stole $sixty five Billion.

before we speak approximately how this $65 billion was stolen, permit’s learn some thing approximately

the person who took it.

His name is Bernie Madoff.

lamentably for him, he's nonetheless alive, on the ripe antique age of 80.

He was born on April 29, 1938, in Queens, new york.

Madoff’s roots are ecu, with his parents having Polish, Austrian, and Romanian background.

His mother and father, Ralph and Sylvia, didn’t have an smooth time of it in ny, specially

as they had to stay through what is now called The excellent melancholy.

Ralph changed into a plumber and Sylvia changed into a housewife, which didn’t precisely afford them luxuries

in lifestyles.

They got worried with finance inside the 60s, but simply because the son could later enter the

global of dodgy dealings, his parents had been at one factor shut down by way of the U.S. Securities

and alternate fee due to the fact Sylvia, whose call turned into at the company, had “failed to

report reviews in their financial condition.”

The corporation turned into closed, however they didn’t have to pay something in fines or bills

to clients.

This turned into 1964, while younger Bernie was just 26.

It’s additionally said that Ralph owed a whole lot of money in federal taxes, and possibly that’s

why the business enterprise become installed Sylvia’s name.

They each passed away inside the 70s anyway, but there may be no doubt that those two sketchy

parents set their son off on a venture to cause economic mayhem.

consistent with reviews, it took Madoff a while to get into finance, and prefer any younger

greenback, he become greater interested by ladies and sports activities, mainly swimming.

In 1959, he married a female he had met in excessive school, and in 1960, he graduated from Hofstra

university in manhattan.

He began law school, then dropped out of regulation college, and with $five,000 he had earned

as a lifeguard and part-time work installing sprinkler systems, Madoff took his first step

into his mother and father’ financial footsteps.

On pinnacle of the five,000, he borrowed a further $50,000, and commenced an investment firm known as

Bernard L. Madoff investment Securities, LLC.

– perhaps now the most infamous funding firm ever created.

The company appeared exact from the out of doors.

It became called a solid “market maker.”

that is described as being a person or a brokerage house that “is continually organized to buy and

sell securities a good way to offer liquidity to the markets,” in step with the website,

making an investment-answers.

In simple terms, they buy when human beings sell, and sell when people purchase, to keep the cogs

turning.

They don’t buy due to the fact a stock is going up, they purchase when people promote.

This involvement of marketplace investors, consistent with Investopedia, approach investors and buyers

will make extra transactions, and that’s excellent for the marketplace in wellknown.

but how do they make cash taking such risks?

well, they rate a bit extra after they promote the inventory they offered.

this is called a Bid-Ask unfold.

That’s a simple rationalization, bc we will’t spend too much time on how the inventory trade

works.

What we do need to get into is how Mr. Madoff made his billions.

As we said, he become very widely known for his good returns to his clients whose assets he

managed.

seemingly, that customer list protected such names as Steven Spielberg and Kevin publisher 1st baron verulam.

you notice, Madoff changed into seen as a stand-up guy inside the economic global.

He even helped shape the country wide affiliation of Securities dealers computerized Quotations

(aka NASDAQ) and was chairman of that employer for 3 phrases.

He made donations to humanitarian reasons, he gave money to politicians, and his brother,

Peter, served two terms on the board of directors of the Securities enterprise and financial Markets

affiliation.

So, you is probably thinking now, how on the planet could this guy additionally be worried in a large

scam?

Madoff changed into first investigated in 1992, but it wasn’t till the 2000s that next

investigations by using personal firms observed what they known as “inconsistencies” that looked

like fraud.

Investigators for years had been pronouncing that the gains Madoff claimed to be making simply

didn’t look viable.

In truth, for years, economic analyst Harry Markopolos have been telling humans some thing

simply didn’t upload up, and embarrassingly for the them, the Securities and alternate fee

overlooked him, even when he went back numerous times with more evidence of what gave the impression of

a scam.

He wasn’t the simplest character that didn’t accept as true with the numbers, but, and plenty of human beings

refused to do business with Madoff.

but how did Madoff get preserve of human beings’s money?

What he had is referred to as a Ponzi Scheme, which in reality positioned, is a scheme that offers big returns

on investments.

It became named after Charles Ponzi, who stated that if you gave him some money, he’d give

you returned 50 percent more in just ninety days.

Sounds great, however what happens is that you pay off those first few people, and word gets

round that certainly there's a huge go back, and soon many humans need to get in at the

act.

You maintain taking new cash, and repay older investors with that money whilst increasing.

The trouble is, you aren’t absolutely making any cash.

manifestly, if all the large investors demand their coins, you’d be in hassle, however what

you do is convince them to keep their money invested because the go back will later be even

larger.

It’s said that Madoff, with his closest team of workers, manipulated exchange reports with a laptop

application, at the same time as they also created bogus shares that appeared to give excessive returns.

On paper, to the undiscerning eye, it gave the impression of he was being profitable.

The poop hit the fan for Bernie while his customers desired lower back, in total, $7 billion, and he

said all he had of their money changed into between $200 and $three hundred million.

This market maker with a good reputation who had sat on the board of NASDAQ had all this

time simply been engaging people into a rip-off.

It’s thought he had hundreds of traders, and in general they lost approximately $65 billion.

It’s also stated Madoff himself made around $20 billion, or thereabouts.

apparently whilst he become confronted by means of his sons, Andrew and Mark, he admitted to them that

he had been running a Ponzi Scheme.

He said that the whole lot turned into “simply one huge lie”.

The sons knew not anything approximately the rip-off, even though Madoff’s brother Peter became involved.

This wasn’t clean for the sons, and that they each died soon after, with Mark taking his

own life and Andrew loss of life of lymphoma.

What’s extraordinary is how candid and cold Madoff become after he were given caught, as soon as pointing out, “I

truely wouldn’t invest in the stock marketplace.

I never believed in it.”

He additionally once admitted that he turned into surprised that he had gotten away with it for see you later.

Madoff known as the investigators useless, saying, “i was astonished.

They never even checked out my stock information.”

many of folks who misplaced cash gained’t get an awful lot, or some thing, lower back, but in 2017 the U.S. government

promised 24,000 victims that a total of $772.five million was to be shared amongst them.

Madoff turned into arrested and charged with securities fraud on December 11, 2008.

His bail changed into set at $10 million, and he had enough coins to pay for that.

He was kept underneath residence arrest for some months till a decide revoked the bail, mentioning that

Madoff changed into a flight danger.

He was sentenced to one hundred fifty years in jail in 2009 at the age of 71.

If he behaves nicely, he’ll get out on November 14, 2139, at the age of 201.

That’s not going to occur of route, and it appears the trickster can also have got his comeuppance.

He changed into unwell on many activities in prison due to pressure, and turned into additionally attacked through inmates.

Others say that the attack changed into for some motive made up, and it's miles a long way from the fact.

this might simply be the case, seeing that in a letter to his daughter-in-regulation, Madoff stated,

“They name me both Uncle Bernie or Mr. Madoff.

I cannot walk everywhere with out a person shouting their greetings and encouragement, to preserve

my spirit up.

it is really quite candy, how worried everyone is about my properly-being, inclusive of the personnel.”

What’s pretty a laugh are reports by means of official media that whilst in prison Madoff had used

his abilties to make the most certain markets.

“At one factor, he cornered the hot chocolate market,” stated one guy who’d been writing

an audio series about Madoff.

He brought, “He bought up every bundle of Swiss pass over from the commissary, and sold it

for a earnings in the jail yard.

He made it in order that, if you desired any, you needed to undergo Bernie.”

So, there it is, the abridged story of one of the international’s biggest con artists, the

darkish prince of Ponzi, the actual wolf of Wall street, and it appears now a intelligent jail peddler

of Swiss omit, in his retirement.

guilty

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