Bernie Madoff hid big dollars overseas that we won't recover, whistleblower Harry Markopolos reckons
Friday, Jun. 5 2009 @ 7:12AM
When Harry Markopolos blows his whistle, people listen. And now he's saying that he thinks goniff Bernie Madoff secreted big bucks in overseas accounts and that the money will never be recovered.
It's not just a guess: Markopolos says his now-famous probe of Madoff's Ponzi fraud tracked the scamster's "feeder funds" in Europe.
And Markopolos reminds us that not nearly all of Madoff's investors got bilked:
"The investors who took distributions for sometimes decades took a heck of a lot more out of this than they put in."
It's up to trustee Irving Picard to recover that money, but how sharp Picard's claws really are has yet to be determined. So far, not so sharp.
Markopolos didn't appear at all nervous when he testified before Congress earlier this year, but now he's positively comfortable, the Boston Globe reports, having seen him in action last night at a financial conference at Boston College:
Markopolos, who cut a stern figure when he testified before Congress earlier this year, appears to have become accustomed to his new role as a celebrity speaker. He walked easily through the audience as he spoke, making jokes about regulators, lawyers, and his own paranoia during his long investigation of Madoff.
Proving once again that paranoia can be a powerful tool.
