Sentinel and Enterprise – After Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme collapsed, having bilked charities, hedge funds and retirees of as much as $65 billion, the temptation is to say: “We’ve learned our lesson. That will never happen again.”
Barring an overhaul of the Securities and Exchange Commission — with tougher regulations, more resources and aggressive, skeptical, better-trained regulators — it could happen again. And, as the markets recover, it may even be happening now.
Disturbing evidence of this came in a summary of a longer report yet to come by SEC’s Inspector General H. David Kotz on how Madoff got away with a scam for 16 years despite repeated warnings to the agency, including a complete blueprint to the scheme by a rival investor.
