Madoff’s crooked empire crumbled during the 2008 Great Recession, when panicked clients began pulling out of his fund, jeopardizing payments to others. By November, $320 million had been withdrawn from his asset management operation. New customers had deposited only $300 million. Madoff knew he couldn’t sustain the fund.
As well as high-profile investors including Steven Spielberg and actor Kevin Bacon, his victims included ordinary investors, like Burt Ross, who lost $5 million in the scheme.
On December 10, 2008, Madoff confessed to his sons, Mark and Andrew – both senior executives with Investment Securities who’d been kept in the dark about their father’s illegal activities – that his financial operation was “one big lie.” He estimated his company had lost $50 billion.
