Bernard Lawrence Madoff was an American financier, con artist, and stock broker who was the admitted mastermind of the largest-known Ponzi scheme in history, worth an estimated $65 billion. He was at one time chairman of the Nasdaq stock exchange. Madoff's firm had two basic units: a stock brokerage and an asset management business; the Ponzi scheme was centered in the asset management business.
From the “Investment scandal” section of Bernie Madoff’s Wikipedia article.
In 1999, financial analyst Harry Markopolos had informed the SEC that he believed it was legally and mathematically impossible to achieve the gains Madoff claimed to deliver.
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