Ruth Madoff has a very (in) famous surname. She got it as a result of being the wife of America’s biggest fraudster, Bernie Madoff. Even though she wasn’t involved with Bernie Madoff’s numerous fraudulent schemes, she is forever linked to him. In this post, we will find out about Ruth Madoff and also take a look at the criminal career of Bernie Madoff. Let’s get started.

Ruth Madoff: All You Need To Know

In the world of business, so many people have appeared with great abilities to create wealth honestly and dishonestly, and an example of this is Bernie Madoff. He is considered the greatest Wall Street con man of all time. He has been known for this since the FBI discovered the theft of large sums of money through the Ponzi scheme in 2008. He was sentenced to 150 years in prison. Madoff died in April 2021 in his cell of natural causes, after spending 11 years behind bars.

During his career, he was a well-known businessman, philanthropist and economic adviser. In addition to being the president of his own investment firm, one of the most important in the capital market. For a few years, he held the position of chief coordinator of the stock market. There he promoted the institution through various strategies to give the entity greater visibility. What positioned it as one of the largest in the world. After many years, the great fraud that he committed to thousands of clients was discovered, stealing close to 50 billion dollars.

Who was Bernie Madoff?

Bernie Madoff is considered the biggest con man in American history. Born in New York in 1938. Notably, Bernie Madoff was a member of the NASD for many years. His company Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities, created in 1960 was among the first five places on the NASDAQ, so he was highly respected by the entire organization. His company had two fundamental areas: as a broker, which was where almost the entire team participated, and the investment area. It was in the latter where all the fraud was managed, investing the money in various hedge funds.

Madoff achieved almost all of his feats because this division of the company was not registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission until many years later, specifically in 2006. This is how, through some criticism of the fund’s management, the great network of corruption and money laundering existed in the structure of the company. However, the complaints took up to 10 years to be valid. Many think that if the authorities had taken it more seriously, they would have caught it more quickly, reducing the damage to those affected.

What is a Ponzi scheme?

It is a system that has stolen the money of millions of people around the world. It offers fast and attractive profits for investors. It is a pyramid scheme where returns are granted by raising capital from the first people to enter the pyramid. The first to arrive get the money from the next members of the pyramid. A real investment of the money is not made, it only takes advantage of the people who are entering the scheme.

It owes its name to Charles Ponzi, who, although he was not the one who created the system, was one of the systems that raised the most money at the beginning of the 20th century. These mechanisms usually require an initial payment to the investor in exchange for a higher than usual return in a short time, generally 45 to 90 days. With the money of another investor, those who entered first are paid. Stealing from one to pay another is one of the basic premises, in which they do not offer any product or service that benefits a final consumer.

How did Bernie Madoff operate?

Following the similar methodology of a Ponzi scheme, Bernie Madoff raised capital from various investors in exchange for juicy returns. Initially, these were fulfilled in their entirety. People trusted Madoff a lot, as he had a great reputation for his track record in the stock market. What made things easier for him to commit his crimes? In this way, he got money from many people who entrusted part of his life savings, giving rise to the biggest scam in history.

The investments that the company supposedly made were false. This was verified after investigations by some media outlets. However, everything exploded in 2008, amid a recession. In that year the clients wanted to obtain their full capital to protect themselves from the collapse suffered by the economy. It was at this point that the fund became insolvent and the authorities began to investigate. Even though there were already reports of many irregularities in the reliability of the business, which was verified shortly after.

Bernie Madoff claimed that if the authorities had bothered to analyze his every move they would have caught him quickly. However, they were blinded by his fame, his reputation in the market and his satisfied customers, a mistake that they will surely not make again. All the companies they traded with were fictitious, to the point that many operations were impossible because the market was closed. If it had been investigated in time, the scam would have been discovered much earlier and fewer people would have suffered.

Why is Bernie Madoff considered the biggest con man on Wall Street?

Bernie Madoff is considered the biggest con man in American history because, according to authorities’ estimates, the former adviser managed to steal up to 65 billion dollars. These figures come from more than 40,000 people who trusted Madoff’s financial skills, something that ended up costing all these families too dearly. Through false philanthropy, he managed to deceive banks and various non-governmental organizations, being one of the breaking points that began his investigation.

People of the stature of the owner of the New York Mets, film directors, actors, Nobel Prize winners, various athletes and much more fell into this fraud, thus increasing the capital of the company. The most surprising thing is that Madoff did not regret what he did. He pointed out that his victims were stupid and greedy, something that significantly increased his grief. 

How did Bernie Madoff die?

Even though he requested probation due to his health condition, the federal judge rejected this request. He died in his cell in April 2021.

How much money and who did Bernie Madoff swindle?

Fred Wilpon, Steven Spielberg, Kevin Bacon and Elie Weisel were some of those scammed. These people have a great track record in their careers, so it is presumed that the sums of money they gave to Bernie Madoff were quite large. Approximately 30% of what was stolen has been paid to the victims, which were part of the fictitious profits from the operations, which was really money obtained from new investors. From here, many of the laws of the stock market changed radically to avoid something similar.

More than 65 billion went to Bernie Madoff’s accounts in his company’s 45-year history. Although he did not repent of his actions, two of his sons died after his sentence. One due to cancer and the other committed suicide two years after the discovery of the fraud. Now, only his wife remains, who, despite the fact that she was not charged, will be pointed out by the media as an accomplice in the biggest scam in the financial world.

What happened to Bernie Madoff’s wife Ruth Madoff?

In the aftermath of his guilty plea in 2009, not only his fortune fell apart, but his family as well. His wife, Ruth (79), became estranged and his children died (Mark committed suicide and Andrew died of lymphoma).

Where did Ruth Madoff move after Bernie Madoff’s scandal?

After the great scandal that shook New York’s high society, Madoff’s stylish wife left Manhattan because the authorities seized all her properties that exemplified her high lifestyle: a 6.2 million-euro penthouse on Park Avenue, the Montauk mansion (Long Island) for 8.3 million dollars, another mansion in Palm Beach (Florida) for 7.6 million, another large house on the Côte d’Azur for 1.1 million, two yachts measuring 16 and 11 meters in length, a private plane. They had a fortune of almost 650 million dollars.

Which place did Ruth Madoff live in?

Ruth was living with her sister, then with her son Andrew and then anonymously in an apartment complex in Old Greenwich (Connecticut) where she paid about 2,300 dollars a month in rent for a space of almost 90 square meters. However, according to the Daily Mail newspaper, since last September he has lived in a mansion of 3.1 million dollars and 400 square meters with views of the sea in the same area that is owned by his daughter-in-law, Susan (Mark’s widow) and from her second husband, Richard.

Is Ruth Madoff a social person?

Ruth has a low social profile, she goes personally to buy at the supermarket where she is seen pushing the shopping cart, she drags the garbage container herself, her clothing has nothing to do with the haute couture designs of yesteryear. She hardly goes to the hairdresser, drives a mid-range car and denies his past. She never talks to her neighbors about what happened because she fears being recognized and attacked, and she hates the journalists who have revealed her identity.

How much money does Ruth Madoff have?

Despite the huge financial scandal from which Ruth escaped unscathed (she did not go to jail, but became a social outlaw), the fraudster’s widow is said to have been allowed to keep two million dollars that were not linked to the biggest Ponzi scheme from the story. But far from investing in luxuries, throughout the last decade, Ruth has had to justify to an independent administrator any expense greater than 80 dollars.