Madoff: The Final Word

Bernie Madoff was merely the rotten centerpiece of a wider web of scammers, according to this savvy debut. Forbes editor Behar investigates the decades-long Ponzi scheme run by Madoff’s fraudulent hedge fund and its 2008 collapse, which wiped out some $20 billion in investors’ principal and the life savings of many retirees. Behar skillfully elucidates Madoff’s scheme, which took in investors’ money, parked it in a JPMorganChase checking account instead of investing it, and paid stellar returns to old investors out of money from new ones; a sizable staff and intense labor were required to buttress the fraud with faked records of stock trades. Centering the book on his decade’s worth of interviews with Madoff after his conviction, Behar depicts his subject as a compulsive grifter who dodged questions with muddled bloviating, yet still possessed a manipulative charisma. But in Behar’s telling, Madoff was merely the apex predator in an ecosystem of flimflam, which included employees and relatives who helped cook the books; major investors who knew Madoff’s operation was a Ponzi scheme, but made huge profits by recruiting other marks into it; and JPMorganChase, which turned a blind eye to evidence of the scam. Behar’s entertaining account shows how easily a sociopathic liar will be enabled by a greedy system. (July)