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The arrest of Wall Street legend Bernard Madoff has clients in a panic that their wealth may be gone.
The arrest of Wall Street legend Bernard Madoff has clients / / panic that their wealth may be gone.
It is hard to believe that somebody so successful who people trusted for years was so greedy and so corrupt to steal their money. It's / It’s remarkable, people who I've spoken to are shocked that Bernie Madoff, a trusted guy would steal their money.
Madoff, former chairman of the Nasdaq stock market, built one of the most successful trading firms on Wall Street. It was at a separate/, more secretive investment division located on a different floor in this office tower that he allegedly perpetrated the fraud.
According to civil and criminal complaints Madoff confessed, he had been cheating investors for years and he estimated his total losses from the fraud may have been 50 billion dollars.
"According to the criminal complaint on Wednesday, here at his Manhattan apartment, Bernie Madoff / confessed to his two sons, Andrew and Mark, both senior executives in the company. The father said of his investment firm quote/ " it’s just a big lie. It was basically a giant Ponzi scheme.”
Madoff allegedly had been using new investment money from clients to pay supposed profits out to other investors. Under the weight of a tumbling stock market, the scheme had collapsed. One of Madoff's attorneys said "Bernie Madoff is a longstanding leader in the financial services industry. He will fight to get through this unfortunate set of events.
Madoff is out on 10 million dollars' bond. He's facing a single charge of security's fraud which carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.
For CNN MONEY.com, I am Allan Chernoff
NOTE:
Ponzi scheme:庞氏骗局是一种最古老和最常见的投资诈骗，是金字塔骗局的变体，很多非法的传销集团就是用这一招聚敛钱财的，这种骗术是一个名叫查尔斯·庞齐的投机商人“发明”的。 查尔斯·庞齐（Charles Ponzi）是一位生活在19、20世纪的意大利裔投机商，1903年移民到美国，1919年他开始策划一个阴谋，骗人向一个事实上子虚乌有的企业投资，许诺投资者将在三个月内得到40%的利润回报，然后，狡猾的庞齐把新投资者的钱作为快速盈利付给最初投资的人，以诱使更多的人上当。由于前期投资的人回报丰厚，庞齐成功地在七个月内吸引了三万名投资者，这场阴谋持续了一年之久，才让被利益冲昏头脑的人们清醒过来，后人称之为“庞氏骗局”。
