Bernard L. Madoff is Jewish, criminal that ran $50Billion Ponzi Scheme - BIGGEST SCAM EVER!

[MikeWB]

Bernard L. Madoff is Jewish

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Blog Name: Tzvee.blog (View Blog homepage)
Headline: Is Bernard L. Madoff Jewish?
Category: Religion
Posted at: 10:21 PM - 12 Dec 2008
Yes, Bernard L. Madoff is a Jew.

Bernard Madoff was arrested and charged today with allegedly running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, according to U.S. authorities.

According to Yeshiva University, "Bernard L. Madoff, a member of the University's Board of Trustees since 1996, was elected chairman of the Board of Directors of Sy Syms School of Business in 2000. Mr. Madoff is chairman of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, one of the nation's largest third-market dealers in New York Stock Exchange and over-the-counter securities. A Benefactor of the University, Mr. Madoff recently made a major gift to the Sy Syms School."

Forbes reports this 'UNFORTUNATE SET OF EVENTS':

   "Bernard Madoff is a longstanding leader in the financial services industry," his lawyer Dan Horwitz told reporters outside a downtown Manhattan courtroom where he was charged. "We will fight to get through this unfortunate set of events."

   A shaken Madoff stared at the ground as reporters peppered him with questions. He was released after posting a $10 million bond secured by his Manhattan apartment.

   The SEC filed separate civil charges.

   "Our complaint alleges a stunning fraud -- both in terms of scope and duration," said Scott Friestad, the SEC's deputy enforcer. "We are moving quickly and decisively to stop the scheme and protect the remaining assets for investors."

   The SEC said it appeared that virtually all of the assets of his hedge fund business were missing.

   Madoff had long kept the financial statements for his hedge fund business under "lock and key," according to prosecutors, and was "cryptic" about the firm.

[MikeWB]

LOL... guess who his biggest clients were? Rich Jews

$50 billion at stake after Wall St broker Bernard Madoff is arrested over 'world's biggest swindle'

Bernard Madoff: 'stunning fraud'
Tim Reid in Washington
Some of America's wealthiest socialites were facing ruin last night after the arrest of a Wall Street big hitter accused of the largest investor swindle perpetrated by one man.

Shock and panic spread through the country clubs of Palm Beach and Long Island after Bernard Madoff, a trading powerbroker for more than four decades, allegedly confessed to a fraud that will cost his wealthy investors at least $50 billion – perhaps the largest swindle in Wall Street history.

Mr Madoff, 70, a former Nasdaq stock chairman, was apparently turned in by his two sons and arrested on Thursday morning at his Manhattan apartment by the FBI. Andrew Calamari, a senior enforcement official at the US Securities and Exchange Commission, described the scheme as "a stunning fraud that appears to be of epic proportions".

The FBI's criminal complaint states that when two federal agents arrived at Mr Madoff's apartment, he told them: "There is no innocent explanation." The agents say that he told them "he paid investors with money that wasn't there", that he was "broke" and that he expected to go to jail.

RELATED LINKS
Madoff's high-profile 'victims'
Many of his investors came from the enormously wealthy enclaves of Palm Beach, Florida and Long Island, New York, where people had invested billions in Mr Madoff's firm for decades. He was a fixture on the Palm Beach social scene, and was a member of some of its most exclusive clubs, including the Palm Beach Country Club and Boca Rio Golf Club, where he drummed up much of his business.

The FBI claims that three senior employees of Mr Madoff's investment firm turned up at his apartment on Wednesday to ask questions about the company's solvency. Two of them are believed to be his sons, Andrew and Mark, who have worked for their father for two decades.

Mr Madoff told them that he was "finished", that he had "absolutely nothing", and that "it's all just one big lie". He said the investment arm of his firm was "basically a giant Ponzi scheme", and that it had been insolvent for years.

A Ponzi scheme, named after the swindler Charles Ponzi, is a fraudulent investment operation that pays abnormally high returns to investors out of money put into the scheme by subsequent investors, rather than from real profits generated by share trading.

The FBI complaint states that Mr Madoff told his sons that he believed the losses from his scheme could exceed $50 billion. If that is the case, his fraud would be far greater than past Ponzi schemes and easily the greatest swindle blamed on a single individual.

There has been scepticism for years on Wall Street over how Mr Madoff managed to pay such consistently high returns. Ponzi schemes inevitably collapse, and Mr Madoff found himself to be no exception. This month, clients asked for $7 billion to be returned, the FBI says.

Mr Madoff ran the scheme separately from his main business and his sons had no involvement in it.

Mr Madoff has been charged with a single count of securities fraud. He declined to enter a plea in Manhattan's US District Court and was released on $10 million bail. He faces up to 20 years in jail and a $5 million fine if convicted. His lawyer, Dan Horwitz, said that his client was "a person of integrity. He intends to fight to get through this unfortunate event."

One investor told The Wall Street Journal: "This is going to kill so many people. It's absolutely awful." Ira Roth, from New Jersey, said that his family had $1 million invested, and that he was in a state of panic.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/b ... 333901.ece

[Ognir]

Former chairman of Nasdaq, it's all one big fraud

[MikeWB]

For Investors, Trust Lost, and Money Too

By DIANA B. HENRIQUES and ALEX BERENSON
The zoning lawyer in Miami trusted him because his father had dealt profitably with him for decades. The officers of a little charity in Massachusetts respected him and relied on his advice.

Wealthy men like J. Ezra Merkin, the chairman of GMAC; Fred Wilpon, the principal owner of the New York Mets; and Norman Braman, who owned the Philadelphia Eagles, simply appreciated the steady returns he produced, regardless of market conditions.

But these clients of Bernard L. Madoff had this in common: They chose him to oversee much of their personal wealth.

And now, they fear, they have lost it.

While Mr. Madoff is facing federal criminal charges, accused by federal prosecutors of operating a vast $50 billion Ponzi scheme, many of his clients are facing an abrupt reversal of fortune that is the stuff of nightmares.

"There are people who were very, very well off a few days ago who are now virtually destitute," said Brad Friedman, a lawyer with the Milberg firm in Manhattan. "They have nothing left but their apartments or homes — which they are going to have to sell to get money to live on."

From New York to Palm Beach, business associates of Mr. Madoff spent Friday assessing the damage, the extent of which will not be known for some time. Many invested with Mr. Madoff through other funds and may not know that their money is at risk.

Emergency meetings were being held at country clubs, schools and charities to assess the potential losses on their investments and to look for options.

There is not much guidance available yet from regulators. On Friday, a federal judge appointed a receiver to oversee the Madoff firm's assets and customer accounts. A Web site is being set up to keep customers informed, but no one is sure yet whether any sort of safety net will catch the most vulnerable investors.

For Stephen J. Helfman, a lawyer in Miami whose father had opened an account with Mr. Madoff more than 30 years ago, the news on Thursday came as a hammer blow.

"The name 'Madoff' has overnight gone from being revered to reviled in the Helfman family," Mr. Helfman said on Friday. His grandmother, at 98, relied on her Madoff money to pay for round-the-clock care, he said, and his two children's college funds were wiped out.

"Thirty-six years of loyalty, through two generations, and this is what we get," he said.

The news was equally devastating for the Robert I. Lappin Charitable Foundation in Salem, Mass., which works to reverse the dilution of Jewish identity through intermarriage and assimilation by sending teenagers to Israel and supporting other Jewish education efforts.

The foundation was forced on Friday to dismiss its small staff and shut down its programs to cope with its losses in the Madoff funds, according to Deborah Coltin, its executive director.

"We've canceled everything as of today, everything," she said tearfully.

Ms. Coltin said she did not know how the little foundation came to be so exposed to the Madoff firm. Its most recent tax filings show that it had $7 million at the end of 2006, with $143,344 in stocks and the rest in "government securities."

It reported the sale that year of "Bernie Madoff" securities, but did not explain what those securities were.

Sam Englebardt, a media investor in Los Angeles, said several relatives had entrusted virtually all of their assets to Mr. Madoff — and he understood why.

"It seems like a huge over-allocation, I know," Mr. Englebardt said. "But remember, they had started out small and invested over 5 years, 15 years, 30 years — and every year they got a great return, and they could always take money out without ever having a problem."

As that track record lengthened, his relatives gradually entrusted more of their savings to Mr. Madoff, he said. "I suspect that is what has happened across the board," he added. "People came to trust him so much that, eventually, they trusted him with everything."

Such stories were repeated in e-mail messages and telephone calls throughout the day on Friday. A woman in Brooklyn whose father died just weeks ago found that his entire estate and a substantial portion of her stepmother's money was invested with Mr. Madoff. A law school official in Massachusetts fears he has lost millions in the collapse of the Madoff operation.

Some wealthy victims, of course, can afford to seek redress on their own. But for them, litigation seems the only certainty.

Throughout the rumor-fueled hedge fund world on Friday, money managers were comparing notes and assessing losses. By all accounts, they run broad and deep — in the billions.

Mr. Merkin, a prominent philanthropist and the founder of several hedge funds, including one called Ascot Partners, jolted his clients on Thursday with a letter announcing that "substantially all" of that fund's $1.8 billion in assets were invested with Mr. Madoff.

"As one of the largest investors in our fund, I have also suffered major losses from this catastrophe," Mr. Merkin said in the letter. "We have retained counsel to determine what our next steps should be."

Some of Mr. Merkin's investors have also "retained counsel." Harry Susman, a lawyer in the Houston office of Susman Godfrey, said he was talking with several clients about legal options.

"These investors were never aware that all of their money was invested with Madoff," Mr. Susman said. "They are obviously shocked."

Sterling Equities and the Wilpon family acknowledged on Friday that they had money at risk in the Madoff scandal.

"We are shocked by recent events and, like all investors, will continue to monitor the situation," said Richard C. Auletta, a spokesman for Sterling and the Wilpons.

The Mets organization issued a statement saying that the scandal would not derail its new Citi Field stadium project in Queens or "affect the day-to-day operations and long-term plans of the Mets organization."

A lawyer for Norman Braman of Miami, a wealthy retired retailer and the former owner of the Philadelphia Eagles football team, confirmed that Mr. Braman, too, had money locked up and perhaps lost in the Madoff mess.

And Bramdean Alternatives, a London asset manager run by Nicola Horlick, saw its share price plummet nearly 36 percent on Friday after it announced that nearly 10 percent of its holdings were caught in the Madoff scandal.

Mr. Madoff has resigned from his positions at Yeshiva University, where he was treasurer for the university's board and deeply involved in the business school.

"Our lawyers and accountants are investigating all aspects of his relationship to Yeshiva University," said Hedy Shulman, a spokeswoman for the university.

The most recent tax filings for the university show that its endowment fund, a separate charity, was heavily invested in hedge funds and other nontraditional alternatives at the end of its fiscal year in 2006.

The school paper, the Yeshiva Commentator, recently reported that its endowment's value had dropped to $1.4 billion from $1.8 billion — before the scandal broke.

Reporting was contributed by Stephanie Strom, Julie Creswell, Eric Konigsberg, Zachery Kouwe and Charles Bagli.

[MikeWB]

Look at Wall St. Wizard Finds Magic Had Skeptics

By ALEX BERENSON and DIANA B. HENRIQUES
For years, investors, rivals and regulators all wondered how Bernard L. Madoff worked his magic.

But on Friday, less than 24 hours after this prominent Wall Street figure was arrested on charges connected with what authorities portrayed as the biggest Ponzi scheme in financial history, hard questions began to be raised about whether Mr. Madoff acted alone and why his suspected con game was not uncovered sooner.

As investors from Palm Beach to New York to London counted their losses on Friday in what Mr. Madoff himself described as a $50 billion fraud, federal authorities took control of what remained of his firm and began to pore over its books.

But some investors said they had questioned Mr. Madoff's supposed investment prowess years ago, pointing to his unnaturally steady returns, his vague investment strategy and the obscure accounting firm that audited his books.

Despite these and other red flags, hedge fund companies kept promoting Mr. Madoff's funds to other funds and individuals. More recently, banks like Nomura, the Japanese firm, began soliciting investors for Mr. Madoff internationally. The Securities and Exchange Commission, which investigated Mr. Madoff in 1992 but cleared him of wrongdoing, appears to have been completely surprised by the charges of fraud.

Now thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of investors confront losses that range from serious to devastating. Some families said on Friday that they believed they had lost all their savings. A charity in Massachusetts said it had lost essentially its entire endowment and would have to close.

According to an affidavit sworn out by federal agents, Mr. Madoff himself said the fraud had totaled approximately $50 billion, a figure that would dwarf any previous financial fraud.

At first, the figure seemed impossibly large. But as the reports of losses mounted on Friday, the $50 billion figure looked increasingly plausible. One hedge fund advisory firm alone, Fairfield Greenwich Group, said on Friday that its clients had invested $7.5 billion with Mr. Madoff.

The collapse of Mr. Madoff's firm is yet another blow in a devastating year for Wall Street and investors. While Mr. Madoff's firm was not a hedge fund, the scope of the fraud is likely to increase pressure on hedge funds to accept greater regulation and transparency and protect their investors.

On Thursday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and S.E.C. said that Mr. Madoff's firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, ran a giant Ponzi scheme, a type of fraud in which earlier investors are paid off with money raised from later victims — until no money can be raised and the scheme collapses.

Most Ponzi schemes collapse relatively quickly, but there is fragmentary evidence that Mr. Madoff's scheme may have lasted for years or even decades. A Boston whistle-blower has claimed that he tried to alert the S.E.C. to the scheme as early as 1999, and the weekly newspaper Barron's raised questions about Mr. Madoff's returns and strategy in 2001, although it did not accuse him of wrongdoing.

Investors may have been duped because Mr. Madoff sent detailed brokerage statements to investors whose money he managed, sometimes reporting hundreds of individual stock trades per month. Investors who asked for their money back could have it returned within days. And while typical Ponzi schemes promise very high returns, Mr. Madoff's promised returns were relatively realistic — about 10 percent a year — though they were unrealistically steady.

Mr. Madoff was not running an actual hedge fund, but instead managing accounts for investors inside his own securities firm. The difference, though seemingly minor, is crucial. Hedge funds typically hold their portfolios at banks and brokerage firms like JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. Outside auditors can check with those banks and brokerage firms to make sure the funds exist.

But because he had his own securities firm, Mr. Madoff kept custody over his clients' accounts and processed all their stock trades himself. His only check appears to have been Friehling & Horowitz, a tiny auditing firm based in New City, N.Y. Wealthy individuals and other money managers entrusted billions of dollars to funds that in turn invested in his firm, based on his reputation and reported returns.

Victims of the scam included gray-haired grandmothers in Florida, investment companies in London, and charities and universities across the United States. The Wilpon family, the main owners of the New York Mets, and Yeshiva University both confirmed that they had invested with Mr. Madoff, and a Jewish charity in Massachusetts said it would lay off its five employees and close after losing nearly all of its $7 million endowment. Other investors included prominent Jewish families in New York and Florida.

On Friday afternoon, investors and lawyers for investors with Mr. Madoff packed Judge Louis L. Stanton's courtroom at federal court in Manhattan, hoping to question lawyers for Mr. Madoff and the S.E.C. But a deputy for Judge Stanton canceled the hearing, leaving investors with few answers. Several investors said they were planning to file lawsuits against the firm in the hope of recovering some money.

Based on the vagueness of the complaints against Mr. Madoff, his confession, as detailed in court filings, seems to have taken the F.B.I. and S.E.C. by surprise. Investigators have not explained when they believe the fraud began, how much money was ultimately lost and whether Mr. Madoff lost investors' money in the markets, spent it, or both. It is not even clear whether Mr. Madoff actually made any of the trades he reported to investors.

The F.B.I. and S.E.C. have also not said whether they believe Mr. Madoff acted alone. According to the authorities, Mr. Madoff told F.B.I. agents that the scheme was his alone. He worked closely with his brother, sons and other family members, many of whom have retained lawyers.

Also likely to face very difficult questions are the hedge funds, investment advisers and banks that raised money for Mr. Madoff. At least some big investment advisers steered clients away from putting money with Mr. Madoff, believing the returns could not be real.

Robert Rosenkranz, principal of Acorn Partners, which helps wealthy clients choose money managers, said the steadiness of the returns that Mr. Madoff reported did not make sense, and the size of his auditor raised further concerns.

"Our due diligence, which got into both account statements of his customers, and the audited statements of Madoff Securities, which he filed with the S.E.C., made it seem highly likely that the account statements themselves were just pieces of paper that were generated in connection with some sort of fraudulent activity," Mr. Rosenkranz said.

Simon Fludgate, head of operational due diligence for Aksia, another advisory firm that told clients not to invest with Mr. Madoff, said the secrecy of his strategy also raised red flags. And Mr. Madoff's stock holdings, which he disclosed each quarter with the Securities and Exchange Commission, appeared to be too small to support the size of the fund he claimed. Mr. Madoff's promoters sometimes tried to explain the discrepancy by explaining that he sold all his shares at the end of each quarter and put his holdings in cash.

"There were no smoking guns, but too many things that didn't add up," Mr. Fludgate said.

However, the S.E.C. had already investigated Mr. Madoff and two accountants who raised money for him in 1992, believing they might have found a Ponzi scheme. "We went into this thing just thinking it might be a huge catastrophe," an S.E.C. official told The Wall Street Journal in December 1992.

Instead, Mr. Madoff turned out to have delivered the returns that the investment advisers had promised their clients. It is not clear whether the results of the 1992 inquiry discouraged the S.E.C. from examining Mr. Madoff again, even when new red flags surfaced.

According to an S.E.C. statement released on Friday night, the agency looked at Mr. Madoff's operations twice in recent years — in 2005 and 2007. The 2005 review found only three technical violations of trading rules. The 2007 inquiry found nothing that prompted the regional enforcement staff to take further action by referring the matter to Washington, the statement said.

Meanwhile, Fairfield Greenwich Group, whose clients have $7.5 billion invested with the Madoff firm, said it was "shocked and appalled by this news."

"We had no indication that we and many other firms and private investors were the victims of such a highly sophisticated, massive fraudulent scheme."

At the court hearing, an individual investor, who declined to give his name to avoid embarrassment, expressed a similar sentiment.

"Nobody knows where their money is and whether it is protected," the investor said.

"The returns were just amazing and we trusted this guy for decades — if you wanted to take money out, you always got your check in a few days. That's why we were all so stunned."

Zachery Kouwe and Stephanie Strom contributed reporting.

[kolnidre]

More proof that predators just can't help themselves and will prey off of anyone for their own ends - even members of their own "tribe."

-Giant Ponzi schemes that feed on wealthy Jews
-Kosher slaughterhouses/meatpacking facilities that pay off inspectors instead of spending the same money to make their operations sanitary sell rancid meat to their fellow tribe members.

Need we go back to the Transfer Agreement?

[MikeWB]

Madoff scandal seems to be mostly Jewish on Jewish crime. You can find the list of victims on that fin aggregator site...

[kolnidre]

He reportedly took New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon - some say a friend or at least associate of Lucky Larry Silverstein's - for US$300 million.

Naming rights to the Mets' new stadium were sold to CitiGroup for $20 million/year. Seems like all this owner touches turns to brown goo. I'd like to see the stadium renamed Fraud Field.