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Madoff served as vice-chairman of the NASD, was a member of its board of governors, and chairman of its New York region. He also chaired the Nasdaq's board of governors, served on its executive committee, and was chairman of its trading committee.
In addition, he was chief of the Securities Industry Association's trading committee in the 1990s and earlier this decade in the same capacity when he represented brokerage firms in discussions with regulators about new stock market trading rules. He was highly respected and a pillar among his peers until the scam he created imploded.
On December 11, 2008, he was revealed as a world class swindler when federal agents arrested him for running a giant Ponzi scheme. According to the FBI's Theodore Cacioppi:
Madoff "deceived investors by operating a securities business in which he traded and lost investor money, and then paid certain investors purported returns on investment with the principal received from other, different investors, which resulted in losses of billions of dollars."
He was tried in federal court on charges of criminal securities fraud, convicted, and, on June 29, 2009, sentenced to 150 years in prison, the maximum under the law. In fact, his real crime was getting caught, and for ripping off the rich and famous, his own kind, who welcomed the steady high returns until what seemed too good to be true turned out to be a scam.
Section 4 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 established the SEC to prevent them. It's mandated to enforce the Securities Act of 1933, the Trust Indenture Act of 1939, the 1940 Investment Company Act and Investment Advisers Act, Sarbanes-Oxley of 2002, and the Credit Rating Agency Reform Act of 2006. Overall, it's responsible for enforcing federal securities laws, the securities industry, the nation's stock and options exchanges, and other electronic securities markets. It's charged with uncovering wrongdoing, assuring investors aren't swindled, and keeping the nation's financial markets free from fraud.
For years, there were suspicions about Madoff because no one understood how his strategy produced annual double-digit returns. The SEC was alerted but didn't act. Derivatives expert Harry Markopolos wrote a report for internal SEC use listing 29 Red Flags and accused Madoff of running a giant Ponzi scheme, to no avail.
Wall Street takes care of its own, and even internal SEC documents suggest that the agency is notorious for being lax, preferring wrist-slaps alone, and nearly always against lesser players, not prominent ones like Madoff or major Wall Street banks and investment firms.
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