It was painful enough seeing all the victims Bernie Madoff scammed. But it makes it all the more painful to be reminded of how incompetent the SEC was, and how this could have been exposed long ago.

By DAVID STOUT
New York Times
WASHINGTON – Unseasoned investigators from the Securities and Exchange Commission were alternately intimidated and enthralled by a name-dropping, yarn-spinning Bernard L. Madoff as he dodged questions about his financial house of cards, according to a scathing new report on the agency’s repeated failure to uncover the huge investment fraud.

“Madoff carefully controlled to whom they spoke at the firm,” the S.E.C.’s independent watchdog said in the report released on Wednesday.

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