Bermard L Madoff after his arrest

The court-appointed trustee for Bernard L. Madoff’s estate has sued three major global financial institutions for a combined $17.4 billion, alleging that the banks aided Madoff in his Ponzi scheme.

Madoff, former investment advisor and chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, in March 2009 pleaded guilty to a massive fraud involving his investment management business, bilking investors out of more than $50 billion dollars.

He is currently in prison serving a sentence of 150 years, after his Ponzi scheme involving Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC was publicized in December 2008.

The three banks been sued are HSBC, JPMorgan, and UBS. They are accused of aiding and abetting Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.

But analysts say that proving knowledge of fraud is difficult—there’s a difference of condoning fraudulent acts and actively finding it. Even the Securities and Exchange Commission failed to act on reining in Madoff, despite alerts of fraud from multiple sources.

Source: The Epoch Times

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