Fraud, Fraud and More Fraud
You can’t pick up a newspaper or watch the news on TV without seeing the name Bernard Madoff. To better understand what he’s being accused of, you can start with an article at Bloomberg.com. Here's an excerpt from that article:
“Bernard Madoff’s amazing Ponzi scheme has put him in a league of his own, for now. He shouldn’t be alone for long. In the end, as with all the great frauds, Madoff’s undoing was that he ran out of cash. For years, he paid returns to early investors with money he raised from new investors, which is the hallmark of every Ponzi scheme. When the economy got tough, and his customers sought about $7 billion in redemptions, Madoff didn’t have the funds.”
To learn more about Ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes, and other common fraud schemes, a good resource is the FBI's website.
Other links of interest include:
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service - Mail Fraud Schemes
United States Secret Service - Financial Crimes Division
The World Bank - Fraudulent Investment and Other Scams
