"No One Would Listen"

Harry Markopolos wrote in 2005 a detailed letter to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that Bernard Madoff was running the largest Ponzi scheme in the world. The 19 page document contained 29 Red Flags.

The detailed letter with all red flags and conclusions is a "classic" and can be found here:

http://www.valuewalk.com/ethics/markopolos-2005-letter-sec-madoffs-fraud/

Bernie Madoff was however a very well connected person on Wall Street. Also, the SEC had investigated Madoff before and found no wrong doing. Admitting that something was wrong would mean they had not done their work before. The SEC therefore decided to ignore the letter of Markopolos.

Only in 2008, during the economic crisis, the Ponzi scheme collapsed due to the avalanche of withdrawals. On June 29, 2009, Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison, the maximum allowed.

Markopolos authored a best-seller on the topic titled "No One Would Listen":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_One_Would_Listen:_A_True_Financial_Thriller

I hope that the SEC and other Securities Commissions all over the world learn from this very expensive lesson.