By Mark Barnicutt on August 26, 2011
Last night, I had an opportunity, along with some of my business partners, to watch an advanced Canadian screening of the documentary, ‘Chasing Madoff’.
I’ll disclose upfront that I know personally one of the ‘Foxfounds’ who chased Madoff for ten years – Frank Casey – who, as a long standing professional of the US investment industry, was passionately committed, along with his colleagues, to seeing justice served for the largest global investment fraud.
It’s an extremely well-done documentary directed by Jeff Prosserman in story format, with commentary by each of the investment professionals (known as ‘The Foxfounds”), led by Harry Markopolos, who spent 10 years of their lives desperately trying to convince US securities regulators that Bernie Madoff was a fraud.
Chasing Madoff is a tragic story that I strongly believe should be mandatory viewing for all investment industry participants & business school students who plan to enter the investment/wealth management industry. The purpose of this is not to necessarily show people ‘how’ the fraud was executed — this was not the intent of the documentary – but instead to show the critical importance of the role that securities regulators (who are supposed to know ‘the how’ when it comes to securities fraud) are designed to play in protecting investors, how they failed miserably due to their bureaucracy, incompetence & conflicts of interest, and the personal financial devastation that needlessly resulted for so many families & philanthropic organizations that worked hard for many years accumulating savings that they believed to be safe & secure.
Watching this documentary reminded me of the following expression:
“People need to know what time it is; they shouldn’t have to know how to build the watch.”
The unfortunate reality for investors who had placed their trust & confidence in a federally regulated securities firm was that the US Securities Regulators, as overseers, not only “didn’t know how to build the watch”, the couldn’t even “tell what time it was” — So much for protecting investors!
Go see the movie…you won’t regret it……….as the final screen of the movie says, “It’s dedicated to the victims of the next financial crisis!’.
To watch the movie trailer, click here.
To purchase the book that tells the Madoff story, “No One Would Listen“.
To read an article we wrote last year called, ‘Wealth Destroyed’, that provides advice on how investors can protect themselves against investment fraud & professional negligence, click here.
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