He stole $65 billion and many of his victims committed suicide: how it was the biggest pyramid scam in history

In 1960, Bernard Madoff created his investment firm. Four decades later he was considered one of the best investors on Wall Street. But a December 11, 2008 he was arrestedaccused of being the leader of one of the biggest pyramid schemes in history.

Indeed, it was true. Madoff had raised 65 billion dollars thanks to its scheme, which worked like a Swiss watch. However, once everything came to light the story had a fatal outcome.

Bernard Madoff and the scam under the Ponzi scheme

The success behind Madoff’s signing was in his movements. The positive results that his clients saw were not thanks to operations that he carried out, but rather came from what new clients contributed.

So all I needed were two factors: they will add unlimited clientsensuring the continuity of your “bicycle”, and that Not everyone would like to withdraw their funds at the same time.. The first could be easily accomplished, since the economic outlook was prosperous and people risked their money.

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Madoff had clients all over the world. But it was with Great Recession -the worst financial crisis in the United States since Crash of 29′– that things changed. In that context, All clients wanted to recover their savings, and in the same vein, no one wanted to invest in a time of uncertainty..

This is how the system began to collapse, the whole truth came to light and Madoff had to explain it to his children.. Of course, it was curious that in the middle of one of the worst economic moments in history the father signed more than one hundred million in bonuses for employees ahead of Christmas.

However, this was a slap in the face with the intention of being able to keep a small portion of the big cake that he had been cooking for years. The children made the decision to hand him over.

What happened to Madoff’s victims

The most tragic thing happened some time after the fraud became known. On December 22, Thierry de Villehuchet, 65 year old Frenchman, founder of the management company Access International (AIA), cut his wrists in his New York office, since had lost between 1,000 and 2,000 million dollars.

In the same line, Lilliane Bettencourtheir to L’Oréal empire had put more than 3,000 million euros in the hands of Villehuchet and was damaged by the fraudster.

Another case that was added to that of de Villehuchet was that of the war veteran William Foxton65, who after losing all his savings (an estimated $100,000) shot himself in the head in a park near his home in Southampton. After his time in the British Army, he retired in 1970 and since then had worked as a military consultant for the Sultanate of Oman and as a volunteer and spokesperson for the United Nations and various NGOs.

One of the most painful deaths within this scandalous event was Mark MadoffBernard’s son. On December 11, 2010, exactly two years after his arrest, he committed suicide. after not being able to withstand the pressure between the demands he suffered for participating in the event and his father’s secret plot.

“I am responsible for Mark’s death and that is very, very difficult. I live with that. I live with the remorse, the pain that I have caused to everyone, of course to my family, and to the victims.”said the scammer from prison in an interview in 2013.

Mark had stated on several occasions that he knew nothing of what was going on at Bernard’s firm, although they attributed to him some 70 million dollars in profits for being part of the company. His brother justified himself in the same way, Andrew, who died of cancer in 2014.

What happened to Bernard Madoff after his pyramid scheme was discovered

After a trial, Madoff went to prison, where he remained until his death in April 2021.. When judging his actions, got 150 years in prisonthe maximum penalty allowed by law.

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Years after the scam, Bernard’s wife, Ruth Apern, confessed that on Christmas 2008 they both tried to commit suicide with pills.. “I thought ‘I can’t, I can’t do this, I don’t know if I’m going to get through this and I don’t know how I’ll be able to do it, I don’t want to either,’” Apern had described. However, after the failed attempt, Madoff said that having failed, having woken up the next day, opened his eyes.

During the time he was locked up, the scammer was able to continue doing his thing: came to monopolize the chocolate market in the prison to speculate on prices. He even became something of a hero in the prison, although when his health deteriorated he had to spend a lot of time in the hospital, where he spent his last days.