Latins Quiet About Madoff Losses

Wall Street Journal (subscription) ^ | December 29, 2008 | Jose de Cordoba, Antonio Regalado, Joel Millman

[CutePuppy]

Clients in Region Invested Millions Through Banco Santander, Fairfield

Wealthy Latin Americans appear to be among the big losers in the $50 billion Ponzi scheme orchestrated by financier Bernard Madoff, although many in the region are reluctant to step forward due to the private nature of Latin American fortunes, worries about security, and concerns about tipping off local tax authorities.

Some were brought into the Madoff investment fund, which the New York-based financier confessed earlier this month was a Ponzi scheme, through Banco Santander, the Spanish bank, which has major operations through the region.

Other investors appear to have been introduced to the scheme through their friendship with Andrés Piedrahita, a socially prominent, Colombian-born banker living in Madrid and London. Mr. Piedrahita, is a son-in-law of Walter Noel, founder of the Fairfield Greenwich Group, which may have lost $7.5 billion it had invested with Mr. Madoff.

.....

In Brazil, no investors have yet stepped forward to declare losses, even though local fund managers said some wealthy Brazilians invested alongside Mr. Madoff. Lawyers say the likely reason for investors' silence in Brazil is that they invested overseas without declaring that money to Brazil's tax authorities, a relatively common practice in Brazil due to heavy regulation and high tax rates.

"It was not declared money, and if that is the case, the victims are not going to appear," said Marcelo Trindade, a lawyer and former chief of Brazil's market regulator, the Comissao de Valores Mobiliarios, or CVM.

.....

Actively marketing an off-shore fund in Brazil is illegal. However, officials with Brazil's regulator said this month they had received no complaints about Fairfield and didn't plan to investigate. "If a billionaire loses money in New York, that is not our affair," said Carlos Alberto Rebello, a CVM official.

.....

[Clemenza]

Most of the Jewish population in Latin America (as is the case in North America) is Ashkenazic. Although Argentina, Brazil, and Cuba had sizeable waves of Russian, Polish, and German Jews in the second half of the 19th/early 20th century, you are very much correct in the large number of refugees from Hitler's Germany that found their way from Sinaloa to Santiago. My former professor found himself fleeing Austria to London and then to Mexico City after the Anschluss.

The exception in Latin America is Panama, where Sephardi Jews from Syria dominate the community. The came after WWII to set up textile firms in the Colon Free Zone. Many of these folks were my clients when I was a young commercial lender all those years ago.

[MinuteGal]

Then there's the nouveau riche in Miami who airily toss off how many millions they lost with Madoff even though they're barely making their mortgage payments.

It's the latest status thing, y'know.

Leni

[Liz]

Most of it was done in secret——many Texans do not even know what hit ‘em yet.

[Liz]

Scamming drug cartels?.......5 to 1 says Madoff gets fitted with cement galoshes before Spring arrives....

Yeah, I guess that's why the feds have him under house arrest in his penthouse.

Knocking him off in prison is so pedestrian and could get too messy.

This way outfitting Bernie with cement overshoes then taking him on a moonlight cruise on the Hudson (before dropping him over the side) is much more edgy, and Noo Yawkish.

[CutePuppy]

Yep, many of those who laughed at the concept of “trickle down” aspect of capital creation and formation, are now realizing and feeling the chain reaction of wealth and capital destruction, and how it affects the general economy, for the rich and the poor.

They may deny or “outlaw” the immutable laws of economics, inflicting damage on great number of people, including those they profess trying to help, but all that does is increases the number of people afflicted with misery or loss of confidence and initiative.

In other words, they change virtuous cycle of investment and productivity into vicious cycle of disinvestment and indecision.

[Enchante]

Wondering if Madoff really burned some Russian mob and/or drug cartel types..... if so he and his family may REALLY have to worry about their personal safety. I only know what I see in movies :^) but I wouldn’t think that those are the types of people to sit quietly forever if someone has defrauded them, even if the money was dirty and the whole set of transactions may have been illegal.

Still, if you’re some big-time mobster or drug cartel overlord, you probably live by making an example of anyone who screws you..... not to mention the simple, primitive lust for vengeance.