Madoff: The Final Word

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Fifteen years after Bernie Madoffs arrest, renowned investigative journalist Richard Behar delivers the definitive account of historys largestand longest-runningfinancial fraud.

Some $65 billion evaporated during Bernie Madoffs epic confidence game. Two people were driven to suicide in the wake of the Ponzi Schemes exposure. Others went to prison. But there has never been a satisfying accounting for how Bernie got away with so much, for so long. Until now.

Richard Behars relationship with Madoff began in 2011 with a simple email request from the inmate. By the time Madoff died in 2021, he had sent Behar more than 300 emails and dozens of handwritten letters, participated in some fifty phone conversations, and sat for three in-person jailhouse interviewsa level of access provided to no other reporter. Behar also established relationships with many dozens of regulators, prosecutors, FBI agents, investors, Wall Street experts, ex-employees of Madoffs, family members, and school classmates.

The result is the final word on the criminal behind historys most enduring fraudand on those who believed him, covered for him, or locked him up. Behar illuminates not only the frauds originsdecades earlier than Madoff claimed in his confessionbut also the complicity of investors, Wall Street insiders, family members, and some of the largest banks in the US and Europe.

Shocking, infuriating, riveting (and at times absurdly funny), Madoff shows us how Bernie ensnared thousands of investors. As Behars dogged reporting over the last fifteen years makes clear, however, there arent many innocents left standing by the end of this tale. Just about everyone involved is guilty, at a minimum, of humanitys most consistent weakness: greed.

Author Bio

Richard Behar is a contributing editor forForbes, and an associate producer and narrator ofan upcoming docuseries on organized crime in the former Soviet Union. He previously worked on the staffs of Fortune and Time, and carried out probes forFast Company,CNN, and BBC. In 1998, he conducted the only prison interview of Dennis Helliwell, who ran the longest-known Ponzi scheme prior to Madoffs. In 2005, Behar launched Project Klebnikov, a global media alliance committed to shedding light on the Moscow murder of his friend and colleague,Forbeseditor Paul Klebnikov. Over a four-decade career, Behar has garnered more than twenty journalism awards. Madoff: The Final Word is his first book.