Defaulting banks - where will it stop?

[Jan Klimkowski]

In the light of this, I now wonder if Madoff could've been running a laundry operation? The big name banks who placed money with him are usually very strict on Due Diligence to avoid this exact sort of thing happening. Something here doesn't appear to add up - albeit that crookedness in the banking community is now business as usual.

Bingo!

A very astute observation, Mr Guyatt. :top:

Which makes the nature of some of his known "investors" intriguing. Lots of "clever" people invested in, say, Carlyle funds because they believed that all that insider dirty money would make above-average profits and be "safe".

The moral may be that when the spooks get into black money trouble, They'll screw anybody.

Because I'm being lazy, here is wiki's list of "known" affected investors derived from MSM financial press sources. I offer it as a starter for ten only, not as anything resembling a definitive list:

Largest stake-holders

According to The Wall Street Journal[101] the investors with the largest potential losses include:

* Fairfield Greenwich Advisors, $7.50 billion
* Tremont Capital Management, $3.30 billion
* Banco Santander, $2.87 billion
* Bank Medici, $2.10 billion
* Ascot Partners, $1.80 billion
* Access International Advisors, $1.40 billion
* Fortis, $1.35 billion
* Union Bancaire Privée, $1.00 billion
* HSBC, $1.00 billion

The potential losses of these nine investors total $22.32 billion.

Other investors, with potential losses between $100 million and $1 billion include:

* Natixis SA
* Carl J. Shapiro (a 95-year-old Boston philanthropist)
* Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC
* BNP Paribas
* BBVA
* Man Group PLC
* Reichmuth & Co.
* Nomura Holdings
* Aozora Bank[102]
* Maxam Capital Management
* EIM SA
* AXA SA

The potential losses of these investors total $4.02 billion.

Nine West shoes co-founder Jerome Fisher is rumored to have lost $150 million with Madoff. [103]

Twenty-three investors with potential losses of $500,000 to $100 million were also listed, with total potential losses of $540 million. They included Bramdean Alternatives run by Nicola Horlick, for example. The grand total potential losses in the Wall Street Journal table is $26.9 billion.

On December 24, 2008, Bloomberg News listed financial losses related to Madoff's fraud totaling $36 billion, which may include double counting from investors in feeder funds.[104][105] A partial list of Madoff's victims from the Bloomberg report includes US Senator Frank Lautenberg's charitable foundation, the Horowitz Association at $800 million, $696 million in losses to Notz, Stucki & Cie, up to $614 million to Natixis SA, BNP Paribas SA at up to $478.2 million, $400 million in losses to Fix Asset Management, $302 million in losses to Nomura Holdings Inc., and $110 million to Yeshiva University.[104]

Some investors have amended their initial estimates of losses to include only their original investment, since the profits Madoff reported to them which they were including were most likely fraudulent. Yeshiva University, for instance, said its actual incurred loss was its invested $14.5 million, not the $110 million initially estimated, which included alleged profits reported to the university by Madoff.[106]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madoff#Affected_clients