.
Harry M. Markopolos (born October 22, 1956) is an independent financial fraud investigator for institutional investors and others seeking forensic accounting expertise. He has received public acclaim for uncovering evidence over a period of nine years that Bernard Madoff's wealth management business was actually a massive Ponzi scheme. Madoff was ultimately sentenced to 150 years in prison after admitting to operating the biggest Ponzi scheme in history.[1][2] In March 2010 his book on uncovering the Madoff fraud was published titled, No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller.[3] It was ghostwritten by David Fisher and reportedly has a first-hand account of uncovering the Madoff fraud and Markopolos's experience repeatedly tipping off the SEC, as well as explaining how Madoff duped his victims. He was formerly a securities industry executive.
In a 2010 media interview Markopolos was scathing in his criticism of the US Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) for both failing to uncover the Madoff fraud in spite of repeated tips, and also for failing to investigate the larger firms under their supervision. He also described the "private moments" he's had with victims of the Madoff fraud as: "Heartfelt, gut-wrenching things. People trying to commit suicide or losing loved ones who’ve died of heartbreak."[4]
Education and career
Markopolos, who comes from a family of Greek-American [5] restaurateurs, graduated from Cathedral Preparatory School in Erie, Pennsylvania in 1974.[6] He received an undergraduate degree in Business Administration from Loyola College in Maryland in 1981 and an M.S. in finance from Boston College in 1997.[7]
In May 1978 he received a reserve commission as a 2nd Lieutenant, Infantry, in the US Army from Loyola College ROTC. Markopolos is a graduate of several Army post-graduate schools including Infantry Officer’s Basic and Advanced Courses, the Civil Affairs Officers Advanced Course and US Army Command & General Staff College. He has commanded troops at every rank from 2nd Lieutenant to Major during 17 years of part-time reserve component service in the Army National Guard and Army Reserve. He left the Army Reserve in April 1995 to apply for and enter graduate school at Boston College the following September.
Markopolos began his career on Wall Street in 1987 as a broker with Makefield Securities, a small Erie-based firm partly owned by his father. In 1988, he moved to Darien Capital Management in Darien, Connecticut as an assistant portfolio manager.
He then worked at Boston-based options trader Rampart Investment Management from 1991 through 2004, ultimately becoming its chief investment officer, and is a past president of Boston Security Analysts Society Inc.[8] He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation and is a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE).[9] He now works, with a certain degree of anonymity, as a forensic accounting analyst for attorneys who sue companies under the False Claims Act and other statutes,[10] focusing on tips that lead to continuing investigations into medical billing, Internal Revenue Service, and United States Department of Defense frauds,[11] where a whistleblower would be compensated.[12]
On February 11, 2009, the Boston Security Analysts Society honored him with a silver whistle in recognition of his efforts to expose Madoff.[13]
Involvement with Madoff scandal
In 1999, Markopolos found that one of Rampart's frequent trading partners, Access International, was dealing with a hedge fund manager who consistently delivered net returns of 1-2 percent a month. Frank Casey, one of Rampart's principals, met with Access CEO Thierry de la Villehuchet, and found out the manager was Bernie Madoff, who was secretly operating a wealth management business in which his clients essentially gave him carte blanche to use the money however he wanted. Casey and Rampart's managing partner, Dave Fraley, asked Markopolos to try to design a product similar to Madoff's split-strike conversion in hopes of getting Access to diversify away from Madoff.
When Markopolos got his hands on a copy of Madoff's revenue stream, he suspected problems almost immediately. To his mind, Madoff's strategy was so poorly structured that on paper, it couldn't possibly make money. Additionally, his return stream rose upward with only a few downticks--a nearly perfect 45-degree angle. Markopolos knew that the markets were too volatile even in the best of conditions for this to be possible. He believed there were only two ways to explain the figures--either Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme (by paying established clients with newer clients' money) or front running (buying stock for his own account based on knowledge about his clients' orders). Either way, Markopolos believed there was no legal way for Madoff to deliver his purported returns. Markopolos later said that he knew within five minutes that Madoff's numbers didn't add up. It took him another four hours to prove that they could have only been obtained through fraud.[14][15]
Despite this, Markopolos' bosses at Rampart asked Markopolos to deconstruct Madoff's strategy to see if he could replicate it. Again and again, he could not simulate Madoff's returns, using information he had gathered about Madoff's trades in stocks and options. For instance, he discovered that for Madoff's strategy to work, he would have had to buy more options on the Chicago Board Options Exchange than actually existed.[14] He also couldn't find any evidence the market was responding to any Madoff trades, even though by his estimate Madoff was running as much as $6 billion--far more money than any known hedge fund even then. In Markopolos' mind, this suggested that Madoff wasn't even trading.
With the help of several colleagues at Rampart, Markopolos continued to probe into the Madoff operation. What they found out concerned him enough that he filed a formal complaint with the Boston office of the SEC in the spring of 2000. However, the SEC took no action. Markopolos sent a more detailed submission to the SEC a year later. He even offered to go to Madoff's headquarters undercover, obtain the trading tickets and compare them with the Options Price Reporting Authority tape. This submission also passed with no action.
Shortly after his second submission, Markopolos traveled to Europe with Villehuchet to help get investors for an alternative product to Madoff that he'd developed for Rampart. On this trip, Markopolos found out that 14 funds were invested with Madoff--and each manager believed his fund was the only one from which Madoff was taking new money. Markopolos believed from the beginning that Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme, given his voracious appetite for cash. However, he had been willing to accept the possibility that it was actually front-running (as some of his colleagues believed), because on paper it made no sense for Madoff to risk his reputation by essentially stealing billions that he really didn't need. His conversations with the European managers, though, revealed a classic "robbing Peter to pay Paul" scenario. Villehuchet committed suicide shortly after Madoff's scheme blew up, having lost $1.5 billion.
Even after leaving Rampart, Markopolos persevered, driven by the intellectual challenge of cracking a Wall Street legend, and the ongoing encouragement from a Boston SEC staffer, Ed Manion. He also did so at considerable risk to his own safety; he'd found out on his European trip that a large number of funds invested with Madoff operated offshore--making it a near-certainty that the Russian Mafia and Latin-American drug cartels had money with him.
The culmination of Markopolos' analysis was a 21-page memo sent in November 2005 to SEC regulators, entitled "The World's Largest Hedge Fund is a Fraud." It outlined his suspicions in more detail and invited officials to check his theories. Markopolos outlined 30 red flags that proved Madoff's returns could not possibly be legitimate. His analysis was based on over 14 years of Madoff return numbers. In that time, Madoff reported only four losing months--an implausible scenario that Markopolos said could only be achieved through fraud.[10][16][17] In the document Markopolos states:
Bernie Madoff is running the world's largest unregistered hedge fund. He's organized this business as [a] "hedge fund of funds privately labeling their own hedge funds which Bernie Madoff secretly runs for them using a split-strike conversion strategy getting paid only trading commissions which are not disclosed.
On June 3, 2009 Markopolos told a conference at Boston College, his graduate-school alma mater, that he believes Madoff personally kept less than 1 percent of the $65 billion reported stolen, and will probably lose what remains of his cut to money launderers. Markopolos estimates that $35 billion to $55 billion of the money Madoff claimed to have stolen never really existed, simply fictional profits he reported. Markopolos believes that his customers lost $10 billion to $35 billion, most of which went to early investors. "Madoff will wind up in a special prison designed as much to keep the crook’s victims out as Madoff in. He’s a guy who can’t afford not to be in prison,” he said.[18]
Congressional testimony
On February 4, 2009, he testified before the United States Congress' House Financial Services Committee’s capital markets panel and on March 1, appeared on CBS's 60 Minutes.[19][14][20]
Markopolos harshly criticized the SEC for ignoring his warnings about Madoff. “Nothing was done. There was an abject failure by the regulatory agencies we entrust as our watchdog,” he explained in 65 pages of prepared testimony. He also said that his original 2000 complaint gave the SEC enough evidence to shut Madoff down when he supposedly had as little as $3 billion under management.[19][15][21]
Describing Madoff as “one of the most powerful men on Wall Street,” Markopolos stated that there was “great danger” in raising questions about him: "My team and I surmised that if Mr. Madoff gained knowledge of our activities, he may feel threatened enough to seek to stifle us.”[19] He testified that he feared for his, as well as his family's safety, until after Madoff's arrest, when the SEC finally acknowledged that it had received "credible evidence" of Madoff's Ponzi scheme years before.[19] He explained that Madoff's "math never made sense," that his "return stream never resembled any known financial instrument or strategy," and that Madoff wasn't making the volumes of trades he claimed.[21]
According to Markopolos, the biggest red flag about Madoff came during his initial analysis of 87 months (a little over seven years) of Madoff trades. In that time, Madoff reported only three losing months. By comparison, the S&P 500 reported 28 losing months during this same period. He likened Madoff's purported returns to a baseball player batting .966 for the season "and no one suspecting a cheat."[21]
Markopolos had originally concealed his identity from SEC regulators in May 1999,[22] although he did meet face-to-face with SEC officials in Boston in 2000 and 2001.[15][23] After the SEC did not respond, Markopolos was fearful of taking his complaints to the industry's self-regulatory authority, the National Association of Securities Dealers (since succeeded by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA)). He not only feared the power Madoff's brother, Peter, had in that organization (he is a former Vice Chairman), but also feared that Madoff may have had ties to Russian and South American organized crime.[21][22] Markopolos believed the Federal Bureau of Investigation would reject his allegations without the SEC staff's endorsement.[22] He believed SEC analyst Ed Manion was one of only two who understood Madoff’s scheme and “the threat it posed to the public.” The only other SEC staffer who realized the scheme's implications was the SEC's Boston branch chief, Mike Garrity. Markopolos met with Garrity in 2005, and said that while Garrity realized almost immediately that Madoff was breaking the law, he could take no action because Madoff wasn't based in New England. Had Madoff been based in New England rather than the New York area, Markopolos said, Garrity "would have had an inspection team inside Madoff's operation the very next day."[21] “My experiences with other SEC officials proved to be a systemic disappointment and led me to conclude that the SEC securities' lawyers, if only through their investigative ineptitude and financial illiteracy, colluded to maintain large frauds such as the one to which Madoff later confessed."[24]
He also added that in 2005 it was Meaghan Cheung, the branch chief of the SEC's New York office, to whom he gave his 21-page report alleging that Madoff was paying off old investors with money from fresh recruits. “Ms. Cheung never expressed even the slightest interest in asking me questions,” Markopolos said. She was too hung up on Markopolos mentioning the possibility of a reward and the fact that he was a competitor of Madoffs.[25] Cheung approved an internal memo in November, 2007 to close an SEC investigation of Madoff without bringing any claim. Subsequently, she left the agency.[24] Markopolos also testified he gave details about the case in 2005 to John Wilke, a Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, but that it was never pursued.[26][27] Markopolos testified he (anonymously) sent a package of documents concerning Madoff to former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who had successfully prosecuted a number of securities fraud cases, but that Spitzer took no apparent action, either. Spitzer's family trust had invested in Madoff.[28]
"Government has coddled, accepted, and ignored white-collar crime for too long," he testified. "It is time the nation woke up and realized that it's not the armed robbers or drug dealers who cause the most economic harm, it's the white collar criminals living in the most expensive homes who have the most impressive resumes who harm us the most. They steal our pensions, bankrupt our companies, and destroy thousands of jobs, ruining countless lives." He testified to Rep. Gary Ackerman-D-NY that he has never been compensated for his efforts. "I did it for our flag, for patriotism."[29] Markopolos presented recommendations to improve the SEC's operations, which included mandatory department standards: good ethics, full transparency, full disclosure, and fair dealing for all. [30] The SEC must establish a unit to accept whistleblower tips, and move its activity closer to financial centers away from Washington, D.C.[12]
His testimony included a reference to another $1 billion Ponzi fraud, which he shared the following day with SEC Inspector General H. David Kotz, who gave the tips to SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro. [31][32] He also disclosed information regarding a dozen as-yet-unknown foreign Madoff feeder funds, “hiding in the weeds” in Europe, whose silent victims likely included Russian mobsters and Latin American drug cartels, “dirty money” investors.[32] Markopolos remarked that European royal families had also lost assets.[24]
In his interview with Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes, Markopolos said the biggest red flag he'd noticed in his initial 1999 analysis of Madoff was that he reported losing months only four percent of the time. To Markopolos' mind, no one could possibly be that good given the volatility of the markets. "As we know, markets go up and down, and his only went up," he said. Markopolos noted that during his tenure at Rampart, he traded with some of the biggest derivatives firms in the world--and to a man, they all felt Madoff's numbers weren't real. He admitted that he had some financial incentive to get Madoff out of the picture, as the two competed against each other from 2000 to 2004. However, he said, he felt compelled to pursue it because "when someone's competing on your playing field, who's a dirty player, you want him tossed off the field." He assailed the SEC once again for ignoring his warnings, saying that the only reason Madoff was caught was because he ultimately collapsed under the weight of his own lies.[14]
As a result of the Madoff scandal, the SEC's chairman Christopher Cox stated that an investigation will delve into "all staff contact and relationships with the Madoff family and firm, and their impact, if any, on decisions by staff regarding the firm."[33] A former SEC compliance officer, Eric Swanson, married Madoff's niece Shana, a Madoff firm compliance attorney.[33]
Personal life
Markopolos is the oldest of three children of Georgia and Louis Markopolos. In his youth, he developed into a skilled hunter and fisherman. His father and two uncles once owned a chain of 12 Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips restaurants in Maryland and Delaware. His younger brother Louie once ran the trading desk for a New Jersey brokerage firm. His sister's name is Pam Markopolos. [34]
He and wife Faith, who also works in the financial industry for an investment firm conducting due diligence of portfolio managers,[35] have three sons, two of whom are twins named Harry Louie and Louie Harry.[36]
Biography
Markopolos's account of the Madoff scandal, No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller, was released in March 2010.[37]
See also
No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller
References
^ Douglas, Craig M (December 16, 2008). "Madoff had early skeptic in Boston gumshoe". Boston Business Journal. Retrieved December 22, 2008.
^ Wagner, Daniel; Pete Yost (December 21, 2008). "SEC has been slow to react to fraud claims". Associated Press. Retrieved December 22, 2008.
^ "No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller" (hard-cover book). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. March 2010. Retrieved April 30, 2010. ISBN 978-0-470-55373-2
^ Levin, Bess (April 13, 2010). "The Madoff Hunter". The New York Observer. Retrieved April 30, 2010.
^ Archon News
^ Erwin, Erica (December 20, 2008). "Erie man blew whistle on Madoff". Erie Times-News. Retrieved December 22, 2008.
^ Lindsay, Jay. "Investor saw inside Madoff scam". Retrieved December 22, 2008.
^ http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/includes/templates/library/flash_popup.php?pID=283836-1&searchphrase=officer
^ "Certified Fraud Examiner Markopolos is Madoff Whistleblower" (Press release). Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. December 18, 2008. Retrieved December 22, 2008.
^ a b Kerber, Ross (January 8, 2009). "The whistleblower". The Boston Globe.
^ http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/includes/templates/library/flash_popup.php?pID=283836-1&searchphrase=department%20of%20defense
^ a b Zuckerman, Gregory; Gauthier-Villars, David (February 3, 2009). "A Lonely Lament From a Whistle-Blower". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved February 3, 2009.
^ "Markopolos honored at Boston event". The Boston Globe. February 12, 2009.
^ a b c d "The Man Who Figured Out Madoff's Scheme". CBS News. February 27, 2009.
^ a b c Markopolos, Harry (February 4, 2009). "Markopolos Written Testimony (February 4, 2009)". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved February 4, 2009.
^ Markopolos, Harry (November 7, 2005). "The World's Largest Hedge Fund is a Fraud" (PDF). The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved December 22, 2008.
^ Fox, Justin (December 18, 2008). "Harry Markopolos really did have the goods on Bernie Madoff". Time. Retrieved December 22, 2008.
^ http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1176905&srvc=business&position=4
^ a b c d "Madoff Whistleblower Assails SEC for Ignoring Him". The New York Times. February 3, 2009. Retrieved February 3, 2009.
^ "Man who warned about Bernard Madoff to testify". Boston Herald. February 3, 2009. Retrieved February 3, 2009.
^ a b c d e Chew, Robert (February 4, 2009). "A Madoff Whistleblower Tells His Story". TIME. Retrieved February 4, 2009.
^ a b c Henriques, Diana (February 3, 2009). "Madoff Witness Tells of Fear for Safety". New York Times. Retrieved February 3, 2009.
^ Scannell, Kara (January 5, 2009). "Madoff Chasers Dug for Years, to No Avail". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved February 3, 2009.
^ a b c "Madoff Tipster Markopolos Cites SEC’s ‘Ineptitude’ (Update3)". Bloomberg. February 4, 2009. Retrieved February 4, 2009. by Jesse Westbrook, David Scheer and Mark Pittman.
^ Markopolos, H. (2010). No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
^ CSPAN. "As eager as Mr. Wilke was to investigate the Madoff story, it appears that the Wall Street Journal's editors never gave him approval to start investigating."
^ "Wall Street Journal missed Madoff fraud three years ago". Jewish Journal (Swindler's List blog). February 4, 2009. Retrieved February 4, 2009.
^ "Madoff tipster Harry Markopolos assails SEC". Associated Press. February 4, 2009. Retrieved February 5, 2009.[dead link]
^ CSPAN. http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/includes/templates/library/flash_popup.php?pID=283836-1&clipStart=&clipStop=.
^ http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/includes/templates/library/flash_popup.php?pID=283836-1&searchphrase=fair dealing
^ Younglai, Rachelle (February 5, 2009). "UPDATE 1-Madoff whistleblower gives fraud tips to SEC". Reuters.
^ a b Henriques, Diana (February 4, 2009). "Madoff Witness Talks of Other Possible Ponzi Cases". New York Times. Retrieved February 4, 2009.
^ a b Serchuk, David (December 20, 2008). "Love, Madoff And The SEC". Forbes. Retrieved December 24, 2008.
^ "No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller" (hard-cover book). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. March 2010. Retrieved April 30, 2010. ISBN 978-0-470-55373-2.
^ "No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller" (hard-cover book). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. March 2010. Retrieved April 30, 2010. ISBN 978-0-470-55373-2
^ Solomon, Deborah. "QUESTIONS FOR HARRY MARKOPOLOSMath is Hard". New York Times Magazine. New York Times Co.. Retrieved 30 August 2011.
^ http://www.newsweek.com/id/235052
External links
(Windows Media) Assessing the Madoff Ponzi Scheme and Regulatory Failures (Archive of: Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Enterprises Hearing). U.S. House Financial Services Committee. February 4, 2009. Retrieved June 29, 2009.
(Adobe Flash) Madoff Witness Testifies: Part 1. CNBC via The New York Times. February 4, 2009. Retrieved June 29, 2009.
(Adobe Flash) Madoff Witness Testifies: Part 2. CNBC via The New York Times. February 4, 2009. Retrieved June 29, 2009.
Markopolos interview (mp3) King World News (May 29, 2009). Retrieved May 10, 2011.
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