SEC Further Details Missed Opportunities To Catch Madoff

In what's become an SEC tradition, the government agency decided to reveal details of its botched Bernard Madoff investigations late Friday afternoon. The SEC offered up a jailhouse interview with Madoff; the NY Times reports he "said that the young investigators who pestered him over incidentals like e-mail messages should have just checked basics like his account with Wall Street’s central clearinghouse and his dealings with the firms that were supposedly handling his trades," adding, "If you’re looking at a Ponzi scheme, it’s the first thing you do."

Of course, the SEC missed six opportunities since 1992 to bring down what would be the largest Ponzi scheme in history. Madoff was shocked when one investigation ended, because investigators had been asking the right questions. Madoff also told SEC Inspector General David Kotz "the problem occurred when I made commitments for too much money and then I couldn’t put the strategy to work. It was my mistake not to just be out a couple hundred million dollars and get out... I wish they caught me six years ago, eight years ago."

Madoff is currently serving a 150-year prison sentence at Butner federal prison in North Carolina.