NEW YORK, Dec. 15, 2008
Savvy Investors Were Ponzi Scheme Victims
CBS Evening News: Trusted Former NASDAQ Chief Sets A New Standard For Fraud
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Play CBS Video Video So-Called $50 Billion Scam There's a growing list of big time investors who fear their money's gone in what prosecutors say was a $50 billion scam run by respected Wall Street guru Bernard Madoff. Armen Keteyian reports.
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Video $50B Scam Victims Speak Victims who lost their life savings are speaking out as investigations continue into Bernard Madoff's $50 billion investment scam that went on unnoticed for decades.
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Video $50 Billion Wall Street Scam Wall Street investor Bernie Madoff was well respected within the world of finance. But, as Michelle Miller reports, the F.B.I. now suspects that Madoff scammed clients out of billions of dollars.
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Bernard L. Madoff (AP/New York Times)
"Madoff has just hurt so many innocent people who really didn't deserve to be hurt," Norman Braman, former owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, says.
Braman joins an ever-widening circle of victims in the $50 billion Ponzi scheme. Including:
All of this raising questions as to how the SEC could have investigated Madoff in 2007 - without bringing charges.
"The question is what did they see, what did they know, and why did the investigation close?" says former SEC attorney Jacob Frankel.
At Madoff's securities firm in Manhattan a small squadron of investigators was digging through records. Trying to determine if, as some believe, money is stashed overseas, and whether or not Madoff could have cooked a complicated set of books - as he claimed - all by himself.
"It's hard to believe one person could have pulled off such a large fraud," Frankel said.
Already two charitable foundations have shut down; and many in Palm Beach are reportedly putting jewels, and even these condos up for sale, Keteyian reports. The price of trusting a man destined, it appears, to set a whole new standard for fraud.
By Armen Keteyian © MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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