I keep wanting to look up every other money laundering scheme I can think of (like BCCI), because that’s what the Madoff case reminds me of.

First there’s the unbelievable extent of the fraud –  all over the US and Europe as well as Asia.

Here is a chart showing the range of groups hit.

Here’s another, also from muckety.

And this is the Wall Street Journal’s list of Madoff clients.

Then there is its brazenness – it seems to have burgeoned right under the noses of regulators. In fact, the regulators seem to have been complicit in it, as this report by David Sirota seems to indicate: the SEC was stone-walling questions about their role at the Financial Services Committee Hearing last week (they invoked executive privilege).

Meanwhile, it turns out that Madoff’s wife withdrew $15 .5 million from a brokerage in Boston related to the main scheme, 10 million of  it on the day he ‘fessed up.

On Monday, Madoff agreed not to contest fraud charges in the civil suit brought against him by the SEC (there’s also a criminal suit) and prosecutors have agreed to a 30 day extension of the deadline for indictment (to March 13), raising the possibility that Madoff could escape a jury trial through a plea bargain.