No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller
Praise for No One Would Listen\ "Harry Markopolos is a hero . . . The silver lining in the Madoff collapse, if there could be such a thing, is that for at least one moment in time, the SEC has been exposed. And for his role in making that happen, Harry Markopolos deserves all of our thanks."\ —from the Foreword by David Einhorn, President and Founder of Greenlight Capital author of Fooling Some of the People All of the Time\ "How to improve financial regulation and reduce the federal budget...
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Bernie Madoff was a king of the financial world. He'd helped create NASDAQ and founded one of the most successful broker-dealers in the industry. He was also a beloved philanthropist. But very few people knew about his side business: he was quietly running the largest hedge fund in the world, a fund that eventually spread to over forty nations and handled tens of billions of dollars. Harry Markopolos was a quant, a little-known number cruncher sitting at a desk at a Boston equity derivatives firm analyzing investment products. When a marketer for that firm, Frank Casey, handed Harry a prospectus outlining Madoff's strategy and asked him to create a similar product, he sat down and looked at the numbers. Literally within minutes Harry knew it was impossible to do. The numbers didn't add up. For the next ten years, Harry Markopolos and the investigative team he recruited tried desperately to warn the government, the industry, and the financial press that the largest and most successful hedge fund in the industry was a total fraud and that the respected and admired Bernie Madoff was a crook. But No One Would Listen. This is the thrilling, complete story of the pursuit of the greatest financial criminal in history—a chase that put Markopolos's life in jeopardy, led to international notoriety from his appearance on 60 Minutes, and once again opened the door to questions regarding the true effectiveness of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Markopolos's incredible investigation takes readers inside the financial industry, revealing the never-before-told stories behind the headlines. As he shows, Madoff was a creation of the anything-for-profit culture that has devastated our economy and that perhaps led thousands of industry professionals, who knew about the fraud, to adhere to the industry's code of silence. No One Would Listen is the frighteningly true story of massive fraud, governmental incompetence, and criminal collusion that has changed thousands of lives forever—as well as the world's financial system. Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Markopolos, the whistleblower who filed five unheeded complaints against Ponzi king Bernie Madoff over nine years, has produced an astonishing true-life whodunit set amidst the personalities, plots, and international intrigue of Wall Street. Having collected damning information on money manager Madoff-the respected co-founder of NASDAQ who ran the largest financial scam in history-since 1999, Markopolos's work as a chartered financial analyst and certified fraud examiner, aided by an industry journalist and two colleagues from his days as a derivatives portfolio manager, lays bare the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a tragically inept regulating agency that "didn't give a rat's ass about protecting investors," and seemed to consider Madoff "just another guy cutting some corners." Realizing he had not one but two powerful opponents-"Madoff and this nonfunctioning agency"-Markopolos refused to give up, despite fearing for his life and his family; accordingly, he transmits his team's determination and fascination in contagious detail. The hows and whys of Madoff's eventual arrest, Markopolos's subsequent appearances before Congress, and the carnival of press coverage makes a satisfying conclusion to this strange epic; Markopolos also includes complete documentation of his formal submissions to the SEC, plus his recommendations for much-needed reform at the agency. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Ch. 1 A Red Wagon in a Field of SnowCh. 2 The Slot Machine That Kept Coming Up CherriesCh. 3 Falling Down the Rabbit HoleCh. 4 Finding More Peters (to Pay Paul)Ch. 5 The Goddess of Justice Wears a BlindfoldCh. 6 Didn't Anyone Want a Pulitzer?Ch. 7 More Red Flags Than the Soviet UnionCh. 8 Closing the Biggest Barn Door in Wall Street HistoryCh. 9 Soaring Like an Eagle Surrounded by TurkeysEpilogue: Mr. Pinkslip Goes to WashingtonAppendix A Madoff Tops Charts; Skeptics Ask HowAppendix B The World's Largest Hedge Fund Is a FraudAppendix C Online Resource Guide for the Classroom and BeyondA Note on SourcesIndex
\ Publishers Weekly - Library Journal\ Starred Review. \ Markopolos, the whistleblower who filed five unheeded complaints against Ponzi king Bernie Madoff over nine years, has produced an astonishing true-life whodunit set amidst the personalities, plots, and international intrigue of Wall Street. Having collected damning information on money manager Madoff-the respected co-founder of NASDAQ who ran the largest financial scam in history-since 1999, Markopolos's work as a chartered financial analyst and certified fraud examiner, aided by an industry journalist and two colleagues from his days as a derivatives portfolio manager, lays bare the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a tragically inept regulating agency that "didn't give a rat's ass about protecting investors," and seemed to consider Madoff "just another guy cutting some corners." Realizing he had not one but two powerful opponents-"Madoff and this nonfunctioning agency"-Markopolos refused to give up, despite fearing for his life and his family; accordingly, he transmits his team's determination and fascination in contagious detail. The hows and whys of Madoff's eventual arrest, Markopolos's subsequent appearances before Congress, and the carnival of press coverage makes a satisfying conclusion to this strange epic; Markopolos also includes complete documentation of his formal submissions to the SEC, plus his recommendations for much-needed reform at the agency.\ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.\ \ \ \ \ \ Library JournalFinancial analyst Markopolos chanced upon one of the biggest financial frauds in history in late 1999 when his firm asked him to duplicate the returns of a wildly successful hedge fund run by esteemed Wall Street financier Bernard Madoff. After trying to reverse engineer Madoff's investment strategy, Markopolos concluded that the fund must be a fraud. Markopolos's book is about his decade-long obsession with Madoff's fraud and his frustrations as he tried to get the authorities to intervene in what turned out to be a $50 billion Ponzi scheme. He reserves his harshest criticism for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which he says appeared to be nonfunctional. He recounts his celebrity after Madoff's exposure and includes recommendations for strengthening the expertise and capabilities of the SEC. One of his most astute observations is that the venality of those profiting from Madoff as investors or agents was a major factor in blinding them to the likelihood of something being amiss. VERDICT Likely to be in high demand, this angry account will please readers specifically interested in Markopolos' s role as a Madoff whistleblower. However, it falls short of being a full explanation of the Madoff fraud. A good book on a similar theme is Cliff Stoll's popular 1990 title, The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage.—Lawrence Maxted, Gannon Univ. Lib., Erie, PA\ \
