Pushing past years of “red flags,” investigators at the Securities and Exchange Commission bungled their probes of Bernard Madoff so badly that his multibillion-dollar fraud not only flourished but he used the exams to suck in new investors, an agency watchdog declared Wednesday.
The report by the SEC inspector general found no smoking gun of corruption in the agency’s conduct toward the disgraced financier. Instead it painted a grim picture of an agency hobbled by incompetence — failing to pursue the most obvious leads — that cleared the way for Madoff to continue what could be the biggest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history for more than a decade.
Recommended Stories
Print subscriber? Click here to login/register your account
Digital subscriber? Click here to login/register your account.