Investors around the world were rushing on Friday to assess potential losses from what could be Wall Street’s biggest fraud – a multi-billion-dollar scheme allegedly perpetrated by investment manager Bernard Madoff. A former chairman of the Nasdaq stock market, Mr Madoff was released on a $10m bond on Thursday after prosecutors said he told senior employees, including his sons, that his operations were “all just one big lie” and “basically, a giant Ponzi scheme [similar to a pyramid scheme]”. Prosecutors said Mr Madoff put his losses at about $50bn but that estimate has not been independently confirmed.
