The financial crisis of 2008, after 15 years, continues to be a topic of interest for the film industry. “Madoff: The Wall Street Monster” is an example of this, premiering in 2023 on the subscription video platform Netflix.
Director Joe Berlinger chronicles the rise and fall of Bernie Madoff, who orchestrated one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in American Wall Street history.
The first episode titled “A Liar Not a Failure” indicates that the investor starts his career trading tiny stocks and builds a business as an advisor, attracting new clients with his huge profits.
The television series is aided by testimonials from victims, such as those who “invested” more than US$30,000 before the real estate bubble burst, running out of savings and with their family retirement in jeopardy.
In addition, he explains that the scam was connected to his company’s asset management, where he promised his clients that if they gave him their money to invest, he would help them grow and have great profits to live better in the future and Secure your retirement.
“The use of their own accounts in transactions generates doubts for their clients. I evaluated the market carefully, following the stories that Madoff was trading $740 million a day, as well as being 10% listed on the New York Stock Exchange. When the authorities found nothing illegitimate, people began to invest an average of US$10,000 in the advisory company,” the film explains.
This business came to consolidate some 13,000 clients who were looking for financial advice to invest.
The 56-minute “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” episode shows Madoff’s magic touch fame hits Palm Beach, his empire delves into hedge funds and he begins to attract the attention of his peers.
To join the Palm Beach club, he had to pay $300,000 for membership in the Jewish society, which was actively seeking new clients in amounts between $1.0 million and $5 million.
According to the testimony of Bette Greenfield, daughter of a Madoff client, he paid US$1 million to invest in 1995. By 2008 he had disbursed US$4.8 million.
This is followed by “See No Evil,” in which the competition investigates the fraudster’s impossible numbers and alerts the Securities and Exchange Commission, but the entity takes no action. The television series indicates that by 2000 the Ponzi scheme already amounted to US$30.1 billion in fraud.
With a duration of 77 minutes, “The price of trust” indicates that by December 2007 “destiny was written”, when customers requested a withdrawal of US$1.5 billion on the US$292,935.2 million that was in bank accounts.
The film production maintains that the investor Bernard Madoff left thousands of people without savings, whom he defrauded of some US$64,000 million without being able to “get their money back.” However, the police authorities ruled a sentence of 150 years in prison in 2009, but he died in 2021 at the age of 82.
The documentary ends with the concern: When will a new Madoff appear, a new monster on Wall Street? That will happen at some point.
Data sheet
Director: Joe Berlinger.
Gender: investigative documentary.
Performers: joseph scotto Y Ginger O’Toole.
Country: USA.
Year: January 2023.
Duration: four episodes.
Platform: Netflix