> What would you say is different about this case, or what about the environment has changed, as compared to Madoff in 2008?
Madoff confessed to his sons and said he was imminently going to surrender to authorities, his sons called the FBI, the FBI interviewed him at home (no arrest, no warrant, no indictment), and he confessed to the scheme being a large scale fraud to the FBI.
And Madoff was physically within US jurisdiction.
And Madoff had much clearer records and much less complicated an organization that the FTX network of companies, which seems to have been highly optimized to conceal specific evidence of fraud and theft by, between, and by insiders against the companies in the network.
Madoff was also involved in a highly regulated industry. That's one thing that confuses me about all of this. A main selling point - probably _the_ main selling point - for crypto has been that it allows users to avoid the current legal framework. And that was also the main reason FTX gave for moving to the Bahamas - there was much less regulations.
It's strange to see people actively seeking a space outside of the government's legal jurisdiction, and then getting incensed that the government isn't entering that jurisdiction more quickly to protect them when things inevitably go sideways.
You’re confusing things. Centralized exchanges like FTX are acting as asset custodians in the same way as a bank, or a stock broker. FTX is not a cryptocurrency.
Crypto users that espouse freedom from government are usually talking about being able to use crypto, on chain, without government interference. They don’t want to be taxed for using bitcoin as a currency, be able to use decentralized services without complex regulations and tax laws, etc. etc
I’ve never heard the case made that asset custodians should be able to steal assets from their customers regardless of the underlying asset.
The story of what happened to Bernie's family after he confessed is pretty tragic. Definitely appears as if they were just as surprised as everyone else, and struggled to cope with the dishonesty and destruction caused by a close family member.
One of his sons, Mark, committed suicide on the 2 year anniversary of Bernie's arrest. It was his second attempt. The suicide note he left (his first attempt) read in part: "Now you know how you have destroyed the lives of your sons by your life of deceit. F*ck you"
So $2.5 million isn't nothing (not by a long shot), but 'scot-free' is probably not a fair characterization, especially considering she has a conservator monitoring all her purchases now (to make sure she's not hiding cash).[1]
Plus her sons, who actually turned their dad in: one killed himself over this, and the other died of lymphoma (won't comment on psychological stress, but you have to imagine the fallout from the scandal didn't help).
What I love about Hacker News is that a person can be convicted of a crime, die while still convicted of that crime, but then have the conviction thrown out after they have left this mortal plane and someone will still be like "Ummm actually he was never convicted of any crimes"
I guess I'm glad that Alan Turing was never convicted of 'Gross Indecency' then! Makes the UK look a lot more progressive!
For those curious how that works see [1]. How common is this? I don’t recall ever hearing about it, even though I went to law school. I don’t know if I just forgot about or it just never came up.
Madoff was arrested fast because his sons went to prosecutors and admitted to the fraud. That's very strong evidence + direct witnesses vs. here where they have to prove fraud and gather evidence.
