SEC Slams Madoff Probe

No surprise here: The SEC released on Wednesday a harshly critical report that finds that a thorough investigation of Bernard Madoff was never carried out, despite all the warning signs. The report also did not find any collaboration between senior SEC officials and Madoff, a theory popular among conspiracy theorists who find it hard to accept that the commission never knew of the massive Ponzi scheme. The SEC received "six substantive complaints" regarding Madoff that should have provoked a thorough investigation. Partially due to an "inexperienced" staff, a thorough investigation was never carried out in spite of Madoff being caught in numerous "lies and misrepresentations." The fact that two parallel SEC investigations of Madoff were going on within the agency without one being aware of the other highlights the embarrassing bureaucratic breakdown.