Harry Markopolos, the man who tried futilely for 10 years to expose Bernard Madoff the largest Ponzi scheme in history, has written a book about his failed crusade.
“No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller” is being released March 2, 2010. Markopolos is heading out on a national media tour to promote it. He'll be on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” the “Today” show, and a bunch of others. Audible is making the first chapter of the audio book available as a free download.
But before the book tour, Curt Nickisch got the first radio interview with Markopolos, talked to people who knew him, and produced this story about the man who’s still coming to terms with the fact he’d always been right about Madoff, but it didn’t do any good.
Madoff became a national symbol for Wall Street greed. Markopolos, an ordinary-seeming if quirky finance whiz, has been harder to peg. The story examines, just why was he the only one to figure it out? Why did he alone try so hard for years to expose the scam? Why didn’t anybody listen?
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Piece Description
Harry Markopolos, the man who tried futilely for 10 years to expose Bernard Madoff the largest Ponzi scheme in history, has written a book about his failed crusade.
“No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller” is being released March 2, 2010. Markopolos is heading out on a national media tour to promote it. He'll be on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” the “Today” show, and a bunch of others. Audible is making the first chapter of the audio book available as a free download.
But before the book tour, Curt Nickisch got the first radio interview with Markopolos, talked to people who knew him, and produced this story about the man who’s still coming to terms with the fact he’d always been right about Madoff, but it didn’t do any good.
Madoff became a national symbol for Wall Street greed. Markopolos, an ordinary-seeming if quirky finance whiz, has been harder to peg. The story examines, just why was he the only one to figure it out? Why did he alone try so hard for years to expose the scam? Why didn’t anybody listen?
Transcript
It was a cold day in December of 2008. Harry Markopolos was at a Boston-area karate studio, where his twin boys were getting lessons. His phone buzzed with two voicemails from friends of his. That’s when Harry found out his fight was over, and that his nemesis, the man he had always called 'MADoff' had surrendered.
MARKOPOLOS: They called to inform me that Madoff had turned himself in and admitted to a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, I felt a tremendous burst of energy and then I almost fainted.
Harry fell against a railing, grabbed it to hold on. What was racing through his mind was complicated. Vindication, definitely. Harry had known Madoff to be a fraud for almost 10 years. And he had told the authorities again and again. Now he knew — they knew — he was right. But there was also sorrow. For people who were just now finding out -– what Harry always knew would happen -– that they had...
Read the full transcript
Intro and Outro
INTRO:Harry Markopolos [MARK-oh-POHL-ohs], the man who tried futilely for 10 years to expose the largest Ponzi scheme in history, has written a book about his failed crusade.
“No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller” is being released March 2 [2010]. In it, Markopolos relives his tragic tale, how he discovered Bernard Madoff was a fraud, how he tried for years to get the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate, how no one would listen.
Curt Nickisch got the first radio interview with the man who’s still coming to terms with the fact he’d always been right about Madoff, but it didn’t do any good.
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James Reiss
Posted on March 03, 2010 at 11:36 AM | Permalink
Digging to China
I’ve heard at least one recent public-radio interview with Harry Markopolos, who tried to expose Ponzi-scheming Bernard Madoff since 1999. Nine years later, in the wake of Markopolos’s repeated attempts to alert the Securities and Exchange Commission, Madoff was apprehended and jailed—after having relieved hundreds of duped investors of more than Bill Gates’s total net worth.
By now Madoff’s story is legendary. Markopolos, on the other hand, has only recently stepped into the limelight with his new book, “No One Would Listen.” Thanks to Curt Nickisch’s interviews of various people, Markopolos emerges as brilliant but a bit of a misfit, wearing an orange shirt and mismatched necktie. Over the years as often as he spoke with SEC officials about the man whose surname he pronounced as “Mad Off,” to rhyme with “Bad Off,” his geeky demeanor and lack of social skills did little to persuade the SEC that Madoff had made off with billions.
Nickisch’s pronunciation of Harry’s Greek surname Markopolos to sound like Marco Polo is suggestive. Markopolos is nothing if not, in the words of one investor grateful for his efforts, a crusader; he might just as well have discovered China as exposed someone who may have been the greatest fraud of all time. The deaf-eared SEC, coupled with Markopolos’s drop-dead persistence, make for a riveting story. In the words of its publisher, Markopolos’s new book is “A True Financial Thriller.”
I guarantee that Nickisch’s nuanced portrait of the pit-bullish whistleblower no one would listen to is something you’ll want to hear.