Bernard Lawrence Madoff, better known as Bernie Madoff, was born on April 29, 1938 in Queens, New York. He was a hedge-fund investment manager and the chairman of the NASDAQ stock market. Madoff who was raised in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood went on to continue his studies at the University of Alabama, later transferring to Hofstra University where he earned his political science degree. From there, he went on to study law at the Brooklyn Law School, though only for a short period of time, Madoff founded Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities with his wife Ruth, in 1960. Considering his many achievements to get where he was at that point in time, Madoff is known best for his infamous Ponzi scheme. His list of clients include celebrities …show more content…
After having them signed as investors to his company, he would pay them very handsome returns and in gaining their trust, they would give him extremely positive feedback, which would eventually attract more investors. In addition, Madoff would capitalize on his business having this foresight of exclusivity. His promise to investors of a 10percent return annually was never openly questioned until 2001 and 2005. Articles and magazines were written, and the person in question was none other than Madoff himself. The SEC would request reports throughout the life cycle of his operation, but Madoff would escape their radar by instructing his employees to construct false trading records and monthly investor statements. Moreover, Madoff would also gain money from fees on investors through feeder funds, which are funds that combined money from other investors and were then transferred to a Madoff Securities account. Another reason Madoff escaped from the SEC is through his family. At some point in time, SEC boss Christopher Cox ran an internal investigation and found out that one of his own employees from the SEC, Eric Swanson, was in charge of monitoring Msdoff’s firm, who also happened to be married to Madoff’s niece. The last reason Madoff managed to hide his Ponzi scheme so well was due to his veteran …show more content…
There’s no real reason as to why Madoff planned to do this scheme, but it seems that he did it, simply because he was in a league of his own and he knew it, which is why it’s possible he went South. The only reason he came forward was because he failed to follow one of the first rules of a Ponzi scheme, he had too many investors in one year and on top of that, he had the global market crisis in 2008, which had opened up the skeletons in his closet. He later began telling his two sons of what he had been doing the last decades, and it wasn’t until Andrew Madoff had told FBI authorities, that his father, Bernie Madoff would be arrested the next day. It wasn’t until 2009 that Madoff pleaded guilty to securities fraud, investment adviser fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, perjury, money laundering and etc. His assets were then sold in order to try and repay all the investors; evidently it wasn’t enough to repay $65million. He was then sentenced to the maximum sentence of 150years in prison. One law that was put in to place was that the SEC now requires all independent public accountants to double check an investment advisor’s numbers. In addition, all investment advisors are subject to surprise exam and custody controls. Also, in corporation with the Dodd Frank Act, whistleblowers can now receive up to 30percent of what the SEC recovers in fines. This will
Madoff started the scheme by misleading his clients to think that he was an elite investor because he was on a vast amount of important boards. Many believed the scheme and invested billions of dollars with Madoffs company. He was able to achieve some of the scheming through running his investments through a different part of his business. This was a way for only him to see the investments and the financial reports behind the investments. Bernard Madoff involved people
The secrecy was another unethical factor that allowed this Ponzi Scheme to continue to grow. This fraudulent component would be agreed upon by Madoff and his clients and the incentivized feeder funds allowed the investors to turn a blind eye. He would not allow his clients to list him as the financial advisor and therefore dodged the surveillance and enforcement of the SEC. Secrecy and lies continued to pave the way to the collapse of this financial
Charles Ponzi was born Carlo Ponzi in Lugo, Italy. His parents were far from wealthy but had an enormous reputation which placed them in aristocracy. From an early age, Ponzi’s mother placed high expectations on him. She had hoped he would restore the family to its former social and financial rank (Zuckoff, 20).
Texas and local politician presentation and discussion Ted Cruz was born on Dec 22, 1970 in Calgary, Alberta to Eleanor Elizabeth Wilson Darragh and Rafael Bienvenido Cruz. Shortly after Ted Cruz’s birth, the oil industry slumped in Canada, causing his parents to have to sell their seismic-data processing company. At the age of three, Ted Cruz’s father divorced his mother and moved to Houston. It was not until, six months later, that Eleanor moved to Houston with Ted, and remarried Rafael. Despite the marital issues with his parents, he still retained a close relationship with both of them.
Middle use the money he was stealing for his personal luxurious lifestyle and also for his family and friends. Invest investigators describe Madoff con game like an inside man. In order to keep his con up he had to "work with others who would help him carry out his complex criminal activity and who he could trust not to betray him"(Lewis, 2013 p.289). He works his family members like his brother Peter who later committed suicide during the trial.
The Bernie Madoff Ponzi Scheme is a well-known case and is known as one of the biggest Ponzi scheme’s. In summary the scheme occurred for many reasons that I will some up into 3 points; A lack in competency by regulatory agencies, a lack of regulation, and finally a breach in ethics by Bernie Madoff himself. To explain further, the regulatory agencies like the lawyers and SEC are supposed to prevent schemes such as this one from happening but because they lacked the skills to correctly assess the situation, interpreting the number of tips they had received regarding scheme that had been filed, and to act on those in an efficient manner. One of the tips was made by Harry Markopolos in 2000, of who correctly predicted that Madoff was guilty of fraud. Even after this tip from Markopolos, Madoff was not arrested until 2009. Many family members were also a part of the fraud along with some non-family members such as Frank DiPascali and a team known as the 17th floor team, who helped Madoff carry out his fraud. The idea behind Madoff’s fraud was that he would produce false statements of their investments and when people wanted to pull out their investments, the money wasn’t actually there, which rightfully rose more than a few eyebrows and ultimately led to his arrest.
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 1957 and he was surrounded by 49 brothers and sisters. His family was really rich because of his father who was a billionaire, and owned one of the biggest construction companies of the kingdom. Bin Laden attended a high leveled school during his childhood, which combined British style secular education with Islamic worship. During his college years, he went to King Abd Al University to study four different courses: civil engineering, public administration, business and economics. In the 1970’s, when he was only 17 years old, bin Laden married his first cousin, and later on married three other women (marrying several times was permitted among Muslims). From a little age, Osama was religiously committed, and whenever his father hosted hundreds of pilgrims during the Hajj, bin Laden had a great time getting to know the gatherers and making new contacts. (A Biography of Osama Bin Laden) Due to influences and strong conviction, this young boy, when reached adulthood, became a terrorist and high threat to many countries, especially America. Osama bin Laden, a fugitive terrorist, was finally caught and killed on May 2, 2011 with the cooperation of Obama and the Navy SEALs bringing peace and closure to American citizens as well as political acknowledgement.
Bernard Madoff had full control of the organizational leadership of Bernard Madoff Investments Securities LLC. Madoff used charisma to convince his friends, members of elite groups, and his employees to believe in him. He tricked his clients into believing that they were investing in something special. He would often turn potential investors down, which helped Bernard in targeting the investors with more money to invest. Bernard Madoff created a system which promised high returns in the short term and was nothing but the Ponzi scheme. The system’s idea relied on funds from the new investors to pay misrepresented and extremely high returns to existing investors. He was doing this for years; convincing wealthy individuals and charities to invest billions of dollars into his hedge fund. And they did so because of the extremely high returns, which were promised by Madoff’s firm. If anyone would have looked deeply into the structure of his firm, it would have definitely shown that something is wrong. This is because nobody can make such big money in the market, especially if no one else could at the time. How could one person, Madoff, hold all of his clients’ assets, price them, and manage them? It is clearly a conflict of interest. His company was showing high profits year after year; despite most of the companies in the market having losses. In fact, Bernard Madoff’s case is absolutely stunning when you consider the range and number of investors who got caught up in it.
Born in Brooklyn, New York in January 1899, Capone was one of eight children. His parents were recent Italian immigrants looking to start fresh in America, the land of opportunity, and would never begin to suspect that they had birthed a boy who would in later years become America’s most notorious gangster, the ultimate “Public Enemy No. 1”.1 Up until the sixth grade Capone worked hard in school, trying to be...
Charles Ponzi was born in Italy in 1882. Born to a wealthy family, Ponzi put off work as long as possible and attended college at the University of Rome. Knowing he was avoiding the inevitable and seeing no appeal in the Italian business world, he immigrated to the United States. In 1903, upon entering the United States at the age of 21, Ponzi proceeded into Canada. In 1909, he was convicted of forgery in events surrounding the collapse of the Montreal banking firm of Zrossi & Co., of which he was a member. As punishment, he was sentenced to a three-year term in the St. Vincent De Paul Penitentiary in Montreal. Released from Canadian Prison after only twenty months for good behavior, Ponzi entered the United States again on July 30, 1910. Within ten days of his release, he violated immigration laws by illegally bringing five Italians over the border from Canada. For this offense, ...
Fidel Castro was born on August 13, 1926. He attended Catholic schools before graduating from the University of Havana with a degree in law.
Bernie Madoff is one of the greatest conman in history. The Bernie Madoff scandal takes the gold as one of the top ponzi scheme in America. Madoff started the Wall Street firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, in 1960. Starting off as a penny stock trader with five thousand dollars, earned from his workings as a lifeguard and sprinkler installer, his firm began to grow with the support of his father-in-law, Saul Alpern, who helped by referred a group of close friends and family. Originally, his firm made markets by the National Quotations Bureau’s Pink Sheets. However, in order to compete with the bigger firms that were trading on the New York Stock Exchange floor, his firm started to use very intelligent computer software that help distributed their quotes in second’s rater then minutes. This software later became the NASDAQ that we know today. In December of 2008 Bernard Madoff confessed that he had embezzling billions of dollars from investors. It is estimated to have lasted nearly two decades, and stolen approximately $64.8 billion. On December 11, 2008 he was arreste...
Bernard “Bernie” Sanders, is one of the best candidates for this years 2016 presidential election. He is the junior United States Senator from Vermont. He has demonstrated his passion towards an equal and stabilized country. Sanders is a man who believes in a country that is equal and all voices should be heard. Socioeconomic issues are to be heard of by all people because these issues are what make the people and the country. His propositions to a better socioeconomic country will better the relationships we have with one another. Voting for Bernie Sanders, means voting for a country that will be equal to all the people living here. A country deserves to be united by all the people living here regardless of race. We are all human, we all deserve
Machiavelli was born on May 3, 1469 in Florence, Italy. Fortunately, Machiavelli had a excellent education as a child. Paolo da Ronciglione, a renown Latin teacher, taught Machiavelli. He then attended the University of Florence and received an excellent education there. Later Machiavelli pursued a career within the government, first he became a clerk, and then an ambassador. Soon after, Machiavelli became Chancellor of Florence and engaged in tons of diplomatic activity which also allowed him to travel frequently. It also placed him in charge of Florentine military, making ...
Bernie Madoff, “a former American stock broker, investment advisor, non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ stock market, and the admitted operator of what has been described as the largest Ponzi scheme in the history of the world”. (Bernard Madoff, 2011, para. 1) Bernie was able to convince investors to give him large sums of money with the promise that they would received between eight percent to twelve percent return a year. Bernie ran a pyramid scheme where Bernie kept the large sums of money for himself, and then he used the new investors funds to pay off the o...