The Fraud of the Century

The Fraud of the Century: The Case of Bernard Madoff Bernard Madoff was a creditable man that people trusted him with their money because “he created an image of power, trust and responsibility.” (Ferrel, 2013, p. 416) He was able to scam and scheme his investors from the early 1990s up until December of 2008 when his Ponszi scheme was discovered. Over the course of a decade he was simultaneously running a legitimate business and earned his investors’ trust because he didn’t make any promises of unbelievable returns. He was a financial expert, served as chair on NASDAQ, and a seat on the government advisor board on stock market regulations. These titles have added to his creditability and people didn’t question him when they hand over their money. He wasn’t able to continue with his scheme and cover it up once the economy started collapsing in the late 2008. This was when his scheme was starting to expose because he wasn’t able to pay back his clients when they requested for their money back. March of 2009 he plead guilty to the charges and later in June 2009 he was sentenced to 150 years in prison. It’s amazing how he was able to pull the fraud of for so long without anybody questioning his strategy. As early as 1992, federal regulators were investigating Madoff and the investigation was dismissed because there was no improper trading practices found. In fact from 1992-2005, his business was continuously being interviewed and investigated, but no wrongdoing was found. In 2006, his business was registered with SEC and that’s when they found misleading behaviors and in 2008 there was an alert stating all his records maybe pointed to possible corruption. Even with the 2008 alert, the allegations were dismissed and no further investigations would happen. Finally in 2009, SEC received enough evidence to convict him of his fraud because two of Madoff’s investors filed a lawsuit against the SEC. The way he conducted