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Bernard Madoff
Sign in to saveAlso known as Bernie Madoff, Bernard L. Madoff, Bernard Lawrence Madoff
American fraudster and financier (1938–2021)
Bernard Madoff was an American financier who ran the largest Ponzi scheme in history, defrauding thousands of investors of billions of dollars before his arrest in 2008. His case became a landmark example of financial fraud and raised serious questions about regulatory oversight in the investment industry.
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Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Given name
- Lawrence
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- United States
- Place of birth
- New York City
- Occupation
- banker
- Languages spoken
- English language
- Native language
- English language
- Image
- BernardMadoff.jpg
- Convicted of
- perjury
- Significant event
- judgment
Show 8 more facts
- Commons category
- Bernard Madoff
- date of birth
- 1938-04-29
- name in native language
- Bernard Lawrence Madoff
- place of detention
- Federal Correctional Complex, Butner
- ethnic group
- Jewish people
- date of death
- 2021-04-14
- manner of death
- natural causes
- P10632
- Bernard Madoff
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Encyclopedic overview
Bernard Lawrence Madoff (/ˈmeɪdɔːf/; April 29, 1938 – April 14, 2021) 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.
Born in Brooklyn and raised in Laurelton, Madoff graduated from Hofstra University, and founded a penny stock brokerage in 1960, which eventually grew into Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. He was the company's chairman until his arrest on December 11, 2008. That year, the firm was the sixth-largest market maker in S&P 500 stocks. While the stock brokerage part of the business had a public profile, Madoff tried to keep his asset management business low profile and exclusive. At the firm, he employed his brother Peter as senior managing director and chief compliance officer, Peter's daughter Shana as the firm's rules and compliance officer and attorney, and his sons Mark and Andrew Madoff. Mark hanged himself in 2010, exactly two years after his father's arrest, Peter was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2012, and Andrew died of lymphoma on September 3, 2014.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Bernard Madoff” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.