Con man who duped the world
Bernie Madoff Investment fraudster BORN APRIL 29, 1938 – DIED APRIL 14, 2021, AGED 82
HOLLYWOOD actors, British banks and seasoned investors all lost fortunes to Bernie Madoff, who was believed to have swindled £33 billion in a massive fraudulent Ponzi scheme.
British fund manager Nicola Horlick was among those impressed by his claims of being able to produce annual returns of at least 10 per cent.
But Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities used falsified documents to make the baseless claims. Everything he claimed turned out to be a pyramid of lies, so when the inevitable crash came it was very painful.
Investigations showed all he had done was copy the tactics of the 1920s American con man Charles Ponzi, who specialised in luring new investors with money ripped off from existing investors.
Such criminal schemes only exist while large numbers of new investors come on board, so it was inevitable Madoff’s financial world would eventually collapse. The Royal Bank of Scotland was reportedly down £400 million, HSBC officials estimated the bank lost more than £650 million.
Oscar-winning film director Steven Spielberg, Zsa Zsa Gabor and John Malkovich suffered losses, along with many high rollers in New York’s high society.
In 2009, after pleading guilty to 11 charges, he was sentenced to 150 years in prison but he had the decency to admit: “As I engaged in my fraud, I knew what I was doing was wrong and indeed criminal. I cannot adequately express how sorry I am.”
Robert de Niro played Madoff in the 2017 film The Wizard Of Lies and captured the glamour, the glory and the fall from grace of the man born in Queens, New York.
Madoff died behind bars and is survived by his wife Ruth, his childhood sweetheart who once worked for him.