No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller, Harry Markopolos [graded readers .TXT] 📗

PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Ocrant.

The only hero in the whole mess in my opinion is Boston Securities and Exchange Commission investigator Ed Manion, who desperately tried to convince the SEC to seriously consider my submissions.

PHOTO CREDIT: Edward Manion.

Madoff’s Global Reach: Over 40 countries, 339 funds of funds, and 59 asset management companies were invested with Madoff. An estimated $65 billion was lost by investors around the world, the largest fraud ever committed. If the SEC had reacted proactively to information my team supplied, an estimated $50 billion might have been saved.

DATA SOURCE: Publicly available information and Symplectic Partners databases. Data restricted to funds of funds with at least two years’ worth of return data through March 2008. For more information, see George A. Martin’s article “Who Invested with Madoff? A Flash Analysis of Funds of Funds” (Journal of Alternative Investments, Summer 2009).

Bernie Madoff (left), wife Ruth, and son Mark in November 2001, Long Island, New York.

PHOTO CREDIT: GI/BM/Getty Images.

Bernie Madoff, brother Peter Madoff, and sons Andrew and Mark (from left to right) in July 1995, Montauk, New York.

PHOTO CREDIT: GI/BM/Getty Images.

Access International CEO Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet on November 30, 2007. De la Villehuchet lost more than $1 billion of his own, his family’s and his clients’ money to Madoff. Two weeks after Madoff surrendered, de la Villehuchet committed suicide at his Manhattan office.

PHOTO CREDIT: Guy Gurney/Sipa Press/0812241922 (Sipa via AP Images).

The names of French noble families are inscribed on the inside of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. During the 2002 European sales trip, de la Villehuchet told me that many of his investors belonged to those families.

PHOTO CREDITS: Hisham Ibrahim/Photodisc/Getty Images (inscribed names); © 2009 by Sam Lin (Arc de Triomphe).

During my February 4, 2009, House testimony, I demonstrate that Madoff’s returns showed a steady 45-degree increase—a financially impossible feat.

PHOTO CREDIT: AP Images/Susan Walsh.

SEC Inspector General David Kotz testifies at the Senate hearing.

PHOTO CREDIT: Chip Somodevilla/ Getty Images North America.

I make a second appearance before Congress on September 10, 2009, this time to the Senate Banking Committee. I am pictured here (left) next to my lawyer, Gaytri Kachroo.

PHOTO CREDIT: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America.

“Markopolos, do you have any more metaphors for us?” Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chuck Schumer asked during the September 2009 testimony.

PHOTO CREDIT: © February 5, 2006, Lauren Victoria Burke/WDCPIX.COM.