The Wizard of Lies

The Wizard of Lies is a 2017 American television movie, based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Diana B. Henriques. The movie stars Robert De Niro as famous businessman and fraudster Bernard Madoff and Michelle Pfeiffer as his wife Ruth Madoff. The movie, nominated for 2 Golden Globes, tells the real story …

What is the Securities and Exchange Commission?

The Securities and Exchange Commission, better known as SEC, is a US independent, federal government agency responsible for protecting investors and maintaining fair and orderly functioning of securities markets. Created in 1934 with the Securities Exchange Act, after the Great Depression started in 1929, as the first federal regulator of financial markets in the United States, …

What is a Ponzi scheme?

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investing system promising high rates of return with little risk to investors. In brief, a Ponzi scheme generates returns for older investors by acquiring new investors. In this, a Ponzi scheme is similar to a pyramid scheme, since both are based on using new investors' funds to pay the earlier ones. Companies that engage …

Bernard Madoff

Bernard Lawrence "Bernie" Madoff (1938-alive), usually simply known as Bernard Madoff, is an American fraudster and a former hedge fund manager and financier. He is famous for being the author of the greatest financial fraud of all times, the so-called Madoff Investment Scandal, happened in 2008 at the peak of the Great Recession. In the past, …

Bernie Madoff and the greatest financial fraud of all times

Bernard "Bernie" Madoff was a well-respected hedge fund manager, founder of a successful investment company named Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, LLC and, for a period of time, Chairman of the NASDAQ. In 2008, at the peak of the Great Recession, Madoff admitted to his sons who worked with him at his firm that the company was …