Renowned investigative journalist Richard Behar delivers the definitive account of historyâs largestâand longest-runningâfinancial fraud, âthe scale of the deceptionâŚbeggars beliefâ (New York Post).
Some $68 billion evaporated during Bernie Madoffâs epic confidence game. Two people were driven to suicide in the wake of the Ponzi Schemeâs exposure. Others went to prison. But there has never been a satisfying accounting for how Bernie got away with so much, for so long. Until now.
Richard Beharâs relationship with Madoff began in 2011 with a simple email request from the conman. By the time Madoff died in 2021, he had sent Behar more than 300 emails and dozens of handwritten letters, participated in some fifty phone conversations, and sat for three in-person jailhouse interviewsâa level of access provided to no other reporter. Behar also established relationships with hundreds of regulators, prosecutors, FBI agents, investors, Wall Street experts, ex-employees of Madoffâs, family members, school classmates, and others.
The result is the final word on the criminal behind historyâs most enduring fraudâand on those who believed him, covered for him, or locked him up. Behar illuminates not only the fraudâs originsâdecades earlier than Madoff claimed in his confessionâbut also the complicity of investors, Wall Street insiders, family members, and some of the largest banks in the US and Europe.
Shocking, infuriating, riveting (and at times absurdly funny), Madoff shows us how Bernie ensnared thousands of investors. As Beharâs dogged reporting over the last fifteen years makes clear, however, there arenât many innocents left standing by the end of this tale. Just about everyone involved is guilty, at a minimum, of humanityâs most consistent weakness: greed.