# Fame.am profile — machine-readable export
# Canonical URL: https://fame.am/person/bernie-madoff
# Generated: 2026-08-31T17:36:32.510Z

schema: https://schema.org/Person
url: "https://fame.am/person/bernie-madoff"
name: "Bernie Madoff"
slug: "bernie-madoff"
description: "He ran the largest Ponzi scheme in history — $65 billion in client money vanished through a fraud so vast that when his sons turned him in, the lie had been running for decades. He'd been chairman of Nasdaq, a pillar of Wall Street, and no one at the SEC caught it until he confessed."
tagline: "American fraudster and financier (1938–2021)"
image: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/BernardMadoff.jpg?width=1200"
gender: "male"
country:
  name: "United States"
  isoCode: "US"
category:
  name: "Academics"
  slug: "academics"
profileType:
  name: "Academic"
  slug: "academic"
  entityType: "https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q39631"
birthDate: "1938-04-29"
deathDate: "2021-04-14"
livingStatus: "DECEASED"
scores:
  popularity:           60.33
  momentum:             0
  historical:           27.99612533333334
  currentAttention:     14.64285714285714
  sourceConfidence:     65
  profileCompleteness:  75
  trendDirection:       "STABLE"
ranks:
  global:   null
  country:  null
  category: null
tags:
  - name: "Executives"
    slug: "executives"
  - name: "Academic"
    slug: "academic"
  - name: "Economics"
    slug: "economics"
  - name: "Investing"
    slug: "investing"
  - name: "Entrepreneurship"
    slug: "entrepreneurship"
  - name: "United States"
    slug: "united-states"
  - name: "Americas"
    slug: "americas"
  - name: "20th Century"
    slug: "20th-century"
platforms:
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    url:       "https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3318676/"
    handle:    "nm3318676"
sources:
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    title: "Wikidata"
    type:  "WIKIDATA"
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    title: "Wikipedia"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://pantheon.world/profile/person/Bernie%20Madoff"
    title: "Pantheon 2.0"
    type:  "DATABASE"
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    title: "Bernard Medoff"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Bernard Madoff"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Bernard Madoff"
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    title: "Μπέρνι Μάντοφ"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Bernard Madoff"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff"
    title: "Bernard Madoff"
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    title: "Bernard Madoff"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Bernard Madoff"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Bernard Madoff"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://hi.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%AC%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%A8%E0%A5%80_%E0%A4%AE%E0%A5%87%E0%A4%A1%E0%A5%89%E0%A4%AB%E0%A4%BC"
    title: "बर्नी मेडॉफ़"
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    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Wikiquote"
    type:  "WEBSITE"
  - url: "https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_L._Madoff"
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    title: "Bernard Madoff"
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    title: "برنارد مادوف"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://www.themoviedb.org/person/5252838"
    title: "Bernie Madoff"
    type:  "DATABASE"

# bio (long form, separated for readability)
bio: |
  Born in Brooklyn in 1938, Madoff graduated from Hofstra and founded a penny stock brokerage in 1960 that grew into Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. The firm had two sides: a legitimate, high-profile stock brokerage that became the sixth-largest market maker in S&P 500 stocks, and an asset management unit he kept exclusive and quiet. That second unit was a lie. On December 10, 2008, his sons Mark and Andrew went to authorities after Madoff told them the asset management business was "one big lie" — a Ponzi scheme he claimed started in the early 1990s, though an ex-trader later testified to faking records since the early 1970s. The FBI arrested him the next day. He pleaded guilty to 11 federal felonies in March 2009, and on June 29 was sentenced to 150 years. Client accounts showed almost $65 billion missing; actual losses were estimated at $18 billion. Mark hanged himself exactly two years after the arrest, brother Peter got 10 years in prison, and Andrew died of lymphoma in 2014. Madoff died in federal prison in North Carolina on April 14, 2021, of chronic kidney disease.