The Bernie Madoff scandal is what Judge Laura Taylor Swain called “the biggest Ponzi scheme known to man” (Behar, 2015). Bernie Madoff managed to con people out of a total of $65 billion dollars. He did this by running a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme baits investors by assuring them that they will get a remarkably high return. He was able to sneak by the SEC so easily partially because he was a well-respected individual in the financial community. He was one of the original creators of the NASDAQ stock exchange. He was also very exclusive when it came to who he would take on as an investor.
A man named Harry Markopolos reported to the SEC in 2005 that he was doubtful that Madoff’s hedge fund was legit. However, the SEC didn’t take any action because the financial reviews were saying that everything looked normal. In 2010 Markopolos had a book published that talked all about the investigation that he did on Bernie Madoff. Now even though Markopolos thought something wasn’t right it was Madoff’s two sons, Andrew and Mark, that turned their father over to the FBI when he had informed them that his business was actually running a Ponzi scheme.
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After Madoff admitted to his crimes the SEC did make some reforms and moved toward an improved operation. They did things like upping how the handled complaints and tips. They also wanted to improve the protection that clients of investment advisors had from things like