International Law

Bernard Madoff Charged: Admits Running a Massive Ponzi

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From the Wall Street Journal, massive Ponzi scheme allegations.

"Bernard L. Madoff, the founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities and a fixture of the Wall Street trading world for decades, was arrested Thursday morning by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and charged with criminal securities fraud by federal prosecutors in Manhattan.

The criminal complaint filed against Mr. Madoff alleges that he told senior employees Wednesday that his business was "a giant Ponzi scheme," according to a person familiar with the matter.

The alleged scheme involved tens of billions of dollars, but the extent of investor losses wasn't immediately clear.

The disclosure came after Mr. Madoff tried to distribute early bonuses to employees of his firm, prompting questions by senior employees, a person familiar with the situation said.

Mr. Madoff, 70 years old, allegedly told employees he had a couple of hundred million dollars left and wanted to distribute it before turning himself in to authorities, this person said.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to file parallel civil charges against Mr. Madoff."

This will be very interesting, one of the great inadvertent Ponzi schemes may be in the making.

Looking forward to the civil charges, which generally tend to be more descriptive of the actual techniques that were in play.

The central banks are just beginning to realize that asset bubbles, the gradual descent from legitimate banking, through to probabilistic ponzis, and finally into a complete ponzi scheme, are at least as important to control as inflation.

Full post as published by Misleading Advertising Law on December 11, 2008 (boomark / email).