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Duped by the Ponz

Published: Dec 15, 2008

 Finance       
What do HSBC, Banco Santander, Royal Bank of Scotland, Nomura Holdings, Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, Academy Award-Winner Steven Spielberg, New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg and real estate mogul Mort Zuckerman all have in common?

They’re all victims of the Ponzi scheme perpetrated by Bernie Madoff, the 70-year-old soon-to-be-behind-bars ex-Nasdaq chief who ran a get-filthy-rich-quick pyramid type of scheme masquerading as a hedge fund from the 17th floor of his midtown Manhattan headquarters.

Although Bernie has said he acted alone (he confessed and is free, for the time being, on $10 million bail), it’s highly unlikely he could’ve run the scheme all by himself, so in addition to more investors in Bernie’s fake hedge fund (a.k.a. a massive pile of papers) being named in the coming days, expect at least a few accomplices to be named in what is shaping up to be the biggest fraud of its kind in history, not to mention another monstrous blow to investor confidence in the U.S. financial regulation system.

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