Apparently, a former assistant director of the office of compliance inspections and examinations in Washington at the SEC named Eric Swanson left in 2006 and in 2007 married Bernie MADOFF's niece, Shana Madoff.
Other personal connections are surfacing.
NY Times Tuesday Dec 16. "A Vienna bank, Bank Medici, became the latest major institution to acknowledge it was a client of Mr. Madoff, saying it had $2.1 billion invested with him. Institutions and individuals have now reported losses of more than $20 billion."Other "Red Flags" are not that convincing to me, as the first 4 could equally apply to all Wall Street managers. For me the most telling is the rampant nepotism at MADOFF. There is a certain "intellectual Darwinism" that occurs in Money Management, in fact it should be embraced and it sends a troubling message when ignored by hiring your own kids. Now perhaps 1 or 2 of the MADOFF sons/daughters were pretty smart and skilled in the investment business, but not ALL OF THEM CAN BE. If they are THAT talented, Dad should help them fund their own enterprises outside of his operation. I see the same problem arose at Noel's Fairfield Greenwich Group.
The most important flag was that a very small accounting firm did the audit of a $17 bn fund! Come one now that is taking "friendship" (as I presume that would have been the response if queried") way too far. Another was this apparent reply to the question "why don't you charge fees?" in a May 2001 MAR/Hedge column, "Madoff Tops Charts; Skeptics Ask How". Get serious.
My previous "breaking" post on MADOFF.
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