Madoff hasn’t purchased securities in client accounts for years, which means the money wasn’t lost in trading, so where the hell did it all go?
Madoff Trustee Says Units of Firm Operated Together in Fraud 
By Carlyn Kolker and Thom Weidlich, at Bloomberg
Irving Picard, the trustee liquidating Bernard Madoff’s securities firm, said he has found no evidence to show that the company’s broker-dealer division was separated from the allegedly fraudulent investment advisory unit.
“We have found nothing to suggest there was any difference, any separateness,” Picard said at a meeting today with Madoff clients in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. “It was all one.”
The trustee said there is also no evidence that securities were ever bought for client accounts for at least 13 years. He didn’t specify whether he meant the entire company or the advisory unit that prosecutors have said was at the center of an alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme at the New York firm…
The trustee told customers today that he wants to sell the firm’s market-making unit in “a matter of weeks.”
“That appears to have some value,” he said, adding that he has retained 45 employees to sell the unit. “We’re in the process of getting some bids.”…
“We are operating out of a crime scene,” Picard said at the meeting. He added that his office has received 2,350 customer claims as of noon yesterday…
Picard said that, going back for at least 13 years, “We have found no evidence to indicate that securities were purchased for customers’ accounts.” It was “cash in and cash out.”
Picard said he reduced overhead for the Madoff firm by about $300,000 a week. When he came in, it had about 175 or 180 employees, he told the clients. Now he has only 60, including 45 at the market-making operation, which he said are necessary…
Full article here.
