WSJ Knew About Madoff Failed to Investigate

Not only did Chris Cox, head of the SEC, ignore Madoff, so did the Wall Street Journal, according to Harry Markopolos.
This comes from Gary Weiss, an editor at Conde Nast.

Markpolos says as follows:

[Pat Burns, communications director at Taxpayers Against Fraud] put me in contact with John Wilke, senior investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal's Washington bureau. Mr. Wilke and I would become friends over the next three years. Unfortunately, as eager as Mr. Wilke was to investigate the Madoff story, it appears that the Wall Street Journal's editors never gave him approval to start investigating. As you will see from my extensive e-mail correspondence with him over the next several months, there were several points in time in which he was getting ready to book air travel to start the story and then would get called off at the last minute. I never determined if the senior editors at the Wall Street Journal failed to authorize this investigation.
According to his timeline, he contacted the Journal in December 2005. The emails to which he alludes can be found here.

Isn't that something. Did the Wall Street Journal help protect the greedy? Read it all here.
Markopolos offered to go undercover:

Complete list of those ripped off by Madoff.

Madoff Needs to Go to Jail

Madoff Tries to Hide Jewels

This guy gets creepier by the minute:

The sons of Bernard Madoff, who is accused of orchestrating a massive Ponzi scheme, alerted prosecutors last week that their father mailed them jewelry, watches, and other items in violation of an asset freeze, his lawyer said.

U.S. prosecutors today asked a federal judge to revoke Madoff’s bail because he violated the freeze. U.S. Magistrate Judge Ronald Ellis asked for legal briefs by Jan. 7 from the government and from Madoff, who remains free in his Manhattan apartment on a $10 million bond.

Madoff mailed five packages of items, including “some very valuable jewelry,” after his assets were frozen by a judge in a related civil lawsuit, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Marc Litt in court today. Defense lawyer Ira Sorkin said the objects, which included pens and $25 cuff links, were heirlooms innocently sent to Madoff’s children and brother, Peter.

Madoff Screwed Charities and Kevin Bacon Too

Madoff's long list of people screwed includes Kevin Bacon.

Bernard Madoff's Offshore Banking

I keep wondering how many more Madoffs are there. There can't be just one. It seems like the past decade has been a free for all for those who knew how to work the system.

WSJ: LONDON -- As investors around the world size up losses on Bernard Madoff's alleged Ponzi scheme, one purveyor of investment services to the world's wealthy -- Swiss private bank Union Bancaire Privée -- is scrambling to explain its ties to the New York financier.

Half of UBP's 22 funds of funds, which channeled clients' money into other hedge funds, put at least some of that money into Madoff-related investment vehicles, including one run by J. Ezra Merkin, chairman of car-loan company GMAC LLC, according to a recent letter from the bank to investors.

Madoff's tax havens:

The accountants believe Madoff regularly sent bundles of money to offshore accounts in the Caribbean and Europe, the Observer newspaper in London reported yesterday.

Madoff, 70, has been ordered by a Manhattan fed eral judge to provide to the Securities and Exchange Commission by New Year's Eve a detailed list of all of his assets - in cluding investments, loans, lines of credit, business interests and brokerage accounts.

But tracking what happened to the estimated $50 billion Madoff is accused of making off with is already promising to be one of the longest and most complicated financial investigations on record, the Observer noted.

And should Madoff prove less than forthcoming regarding his offshore accounts, investigators could be in for an even tougher time.

The tax havens are designed under local laws to be nearly impervious to subpoenas or other investigative inquiries, making it notoriously tough for US officials to seize or even see what's there.

Madoff Fallout: Suicide

Update: AP confirms it was a suicide. I'd hate to have so much money that I'd have to commit suicide if I lost it all.

NEW YORK (AP) -- The founder of an investment fund that lost $1.4 billion with Bernard Madoff was discovered dead Tuesday after committing suicide at his Madison Avenue office, marking a grim turn in a scandal that has left investors around the world in financial ruin.

Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, 65, was found sitting at his desk at about 8 a.m. with both wrists slashed, New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said. A box cutter was found on the floor along with a bottle of sleeping pills on his desk. No suicide note was found.

De la Villehuchet was one of several fund managers to be hit hard in Madoff's alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme. Investment funds that lost big to Madoff are also facing backlash and investor lawsuits for not protecting their clients from the alleged fraud.

Are there any words left to say about Madoff? How many more Madoffs are there out there?

Reuters: French executive whose fund reportedly lost large sums it invested with Wall Street adviser Bernard Madoff was found dead in New York City, police said on Tuesday.

It appeared "highly likely" that he committed suicide, said a source familiar with the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity. A French newspaper also said he killed himself.

Madoff is the Wall Street fund manager who authorities say confessed to running a $50 billion fraud that may have ensnared investors and charities around the world.