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‘’Largest Fraud in Wall Street History‘’
Posted by: sydneystoneman | September 15, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Over the years it’s unlikely you haven’t heard about the colossal Ponzi scheme of Bernard L. Madoff. The 70- year old former stock broker, financial advisor and chairman of NASDAQ, was arrested on December 11, 2008 in his Manhattan home and charged with numerous accounts of fraud which has said to have cost 65 billion dollars over the past 20 years.
On March 12, 2009, Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 federal crimes and admitted to turning his wealth management business into a massive Ponzi scheme, defrauding thousands of investors billions of dollars. His investors reported that Madoff returned eight to twelve percent in a year. He was allegedly paying the first investors with money from the new investors, in turn, building up debt rather than assets.The court-appointed trustee estimated the loss of investors to be 18 billion. On June 29, 2009 he was sentenced to 150 years in federal prison.
It is no question that this case offers many questions of business ethics. Federal laws broken, fraud, lies and stolen money; Mr. Madoff is a major example of bad ethics in business.
“On Wall Street, his name was legendary. Now it is infamous.” (Ruby Washington/ The New York Times)
