General audience.
· Exclusive story: This is the story of Harry Markopolos' personal investigation into Bernie Madoff and his firm's $65 billion Ponzi Scheme.
· News-breaking details of the ongoing Madoff investigation: This includes the SEC's own internal investigation of its enforcement failures.
· Markopolos is paired with bestselling author, David Fisher: Fisher is personally committed to turning Harry's investigation and personal story into a business crime bestseller.
This is the personal story of whistleblowing and investigative sleuth Harry Markopolos, who raised multiple red flags to the SEC about the probability of criminal activities by Bernie Madoff almost 9 years ago. Bernie Madoff was the founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC in 1960, one of the top market making businesses on Wall Street. He was also the Chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange. After pleading guilty to 11 felonies and confessing to turning his wealth management business into a massive Ponzi Scheme, thousands of investors were at a loss of a total of $65 million. Madoff says that the fraud began in the 1990's though federal investigators believe it to have started as early as the 1980's. Madoff has been sentenced to 150 years in prison, the maximum sentence allowed.
This is the story of Harry Markopolos, the whistleblower who discovered that crimes against investors were being committed by Bernie Madoff, whose Ponzi Scheme would ultimately become the biggest and longest-running financial investment fraud in history. Madoff's impact, both financially on individuals and institutions, continues to send shockwaves across the financial system and represents a major failure to investigate by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the nation's top market copy. The unraveling of the Madoff investment fund will go down as the crowning story of an era that has ended with the most troubled, turbulent, and uncertain global economy. How Madoff was enabled, by investors and fiduciaries alike, is nothing short of breath-taking and spell-binding. But how Madoff was allowed to operate by the SEC, despite repeated written and verbal warnings by whistleblower Harry Markopolos, is something that can only be told Harry himself and his team of financial sleuths.
Foreword.
Who's Who.
Introduction.
· Chapter 1: A Red Wagon in a Field of Snow.
· Chapter 2: The Slot Machine That Kept Coming Up Cherries.
· Chapter 3: Falling Down the Rabbit Hole.
· Chapter 4: Finding More Peters (to Pay Paul).
· Chapter 5: The Goddess of Justice Wears a Blindfold.
· Chapter 6: Didn't Anyone Want a Pulitzer?
· Chapter 7: More Red Flags Than the Soviet Union.
· Chapter 8: Closing the Biggest Barn Door in Wall Street History.
· Chapter 9: Soaring Like an Eagle Surrounded by Turkeys.
Epilogue: Mr. Pinkslip Goes to Washington.
Appendix A: Madoff Tops Charts; Skeptics Ask How.
Appendix B: The World's Largest Hedge Fund Is a Fraud.
Appendix C: Online Resource Guide for the Classroom and Beyond.
A Note on Sources.
About the Author.
Acknowledgments.
Index.
This is the thrilling story of how the Harry Markopolos, a little-known number cruncher from a Boston equity derivatives firm, and his investigative team uncovered Bernie Madoff's scam years before it made headlines, and how they desperately tried to warn the government, the industry, and the financial press.
Page by page, Markopolos details his pursuit of the greatest financial criminal in history, and reveals the massive fraud, governmental incompetence, and criminal collusion that have changed thousands of lives forever-as well as the world's financial system.
· Chapter 1: A Red Wagon in a Field of Snow.
· Chapter 2: The Slot Machine That Kept Coming Up Cherries.
· Chapter 3: Falling Down the Rabbit Hole.
· Chapter 4: Finding More Peters (to Pay Paul).
· Chapter 5: The Goddess of Justice Wears a Blindfold.
· Chapter 6: Didn't Anyone Want a Pulitzer?
· Chapter 7: More Red Flags Than the Soviet Union.
· Chapter 8: Closing the Biggest Barn Door in Wall Street History.
· Chapter 9: Soaring Like an Eagle Surrounded by Turkeys.
Harry Markopolos, a former securities industry executive turned independent financial fraud investigator, was the whistleblower who provided credible and detailed evidence several times between 2000-2008 that should have caused investigation by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission into Bernie Madoff's $65 billion Ponzi Scheme. He presented support that argued that it was not legally possible for Madoff to deliver the returns he had claimed to deliver. Markopolos' investigation was assisted by his fellow team at FoxHounds, Inc. that included Michael Ocrant; Frank Casey; Gaytri Kachroo and Neil Chelo. David Fisher has been writing about an extraordinary variety of subjects for almost three decades. An author of over 50 books, he has told the stories of Mafia hit men, sports legends, and Nobel Prize-winning biochemists. He co-authored his first bestseller, Joey the Hitman: The Autobiography of a Mafia Killer, the first confessional written by a Mafia hit man. Fisher's newest book, Friends of the Family: The True Story of the Mafia Cops Case, was published in June 2009.
