Crook Review

Harry Markopolos spent nine long, frustrating years trying to get the S.E.C. to investigate Bernie Madoff, but the Bush administration valued profit over the public good and let Mr. Madoff and his perfidious ilk run wild.

Mr. Markopolos has written a book about his decade-long crusade to nail this $40 billion dollar crook, a tome called "No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller". It is to be released Tuesday, March 2nd, but it's already garnering interest from the major movie studios.

The New York Times recently interviewed Mr. Markopolos about his experience and here are a few juicy tidbits:

NYT: What was it like to spend nine years trying to persuade the Securities and Exchange Commission that Bernard Madoff was a fraud, only to learn that the agency thought he was perfectly reputable?

HM: For nine years I was the S.E.C.’s doormat.

NYT: Now you’re triumphant, a hero in investment circles who exposes the S.E.C. as the most futile of agencies in your new book, “No One Would Listen.”

HM: It was a trip through the twilight zone.

NYT: Why do you think the S.E.C. failed to wake up to Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme until he turned himself in?

HM: They weren’t even asleep at the switch; they were comatose. They didn’t respond to heat and light, much less evidence of wrongdoing. They were not engaged in the fight.

NYT: This was when William Donaldson was head of the S.E.C.?

HM: Donaldson was too tough on Wall Street, so he got the ax. Then you had Christopher Cox, because he wasn’t going to do his job. That’s why he got the job.

NYT: You met last year with Mary Schapiro, the current head of the S.E.C. How did that go?

HM: I would say she was coldly polite. Her general counsel, David Becker, did most of the talking. He and I did not get along at all. He was getting ready to come across the coffee table and strangle me.

NYT: In the year since you testified before Congress about the S.E.C.’s failures, many of the agency’s employees have been replaced.

HM: They’ve redisorganized. They redisorganized the enforcement unit. I actually approve of that. I think Robert Khuzami, the new head of the enforcement division, has got fire in his belly.

NYT: Are you saying the S.E.C. under Schapiro is about to catch fraud on Wall Street?

HM: She has the wrong staff. They’re a bunch of idiots there.

You can read the rest of the interview here.


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