Jerry Kronenberg, Boston Herald
The Boston financial whiz who tried for years to expose Bernard Madoff reveals in an explosive new memoir that he made plans to murder the Ponzi schemer if necessary.
“If (Madoff) contacted me and threatened me, I was going to go down to New York and take him out,” Whitman resident Harry Markopolos writes in “No One Would Listen,” due in bookstores Tuesday. “At that point, it would have come down to him or me, (and) I felt I had no other options: I was going to kill him.”
“No One Would Listen” tracks Markopolos’ eight-year odyssey to warn the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that Madoff was running the largest investment scam in history.
Working for a Boston financial firm in 2000, Markopolos discovered the $65 billion Ponzi scheme while trying to reproduce Madoff’s unbelievable investment returns.
However, the SEC ignored Markopolos’ numerous warnings, and the scam only collapsed when Madoff turned himself in on Dec. 11, 2008. The global market meltdown had left the crook unable to come up with money his clients were clamoring to get back.
Markopolos, who skewered the SEC in televised testimony before Congress last year, has previously said he feared for his life during his long quest.
After all, Madoff faced years in prison if caught, and Markopolos thinks the scam’s victims included mobsters and drug dealers he believes laundered money through Madoff.
But in his book, Markopolos reveals for the first time just how far he went to protect himself.
http://bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1236008&position=0
