From The Guardian, UK:

Frank DiPascali, a loyal lieutenant who worked for Madoff Investment Securities for 33 years, admitted he helped the fraudster run a $65bn (£39bn) pyramid scheme from the early 1990s to 2008.

……DiPascali, 52, faces a notional maximum sentence of 125 years in prison. But he has agreed to co-operate with prosecutors in return for more lenient treatment, in a deal which victims hope will lead to more Madoff conspirators being unmasked.

One of the firm’s longest serving employees, DiPascali joined Madoff Investment Securities as a high school leaver in 1975. He told the court that by the early 1990s, he knew that purported investments on behalf of thousands of clients were fake. “No purchases or sales of securities were actually taking place,” said DiPascali. “It was all fake, it was fictitious. It was wrong, and I knew it was wrong at the time.”

My Comment:

Check back on my posts on Madoff. You’ll see this blog was one of the first to say the Madoff fraud was obviously old, and dated way back before 2005. We think it was fraudulent from the get go. In fact, we think Madoff is taking the fall for many other people, for whatever reason.

Bit by damning bit, we’re going to find out that a LOT of people knew. You can’t run a racket like this without nearly everyone near you either knowing or suspecting something’s amiss.

We’re on record calling DC a den of thieves. We never said it was a den of morons. There were plenty of smart people there who caught on to what was going on. Why didn’t they speak up? We know Henry Markopoulous did, even though he was afraid for his family. So what about the rest?

Which powerful, well-organized group of insiders overawed them?