The Greatest Ponzi Scheme

Madoff Securities case occurred because of fraudulent investment schemes due to lack of regulation as well as insufficient oversight of specific financial intermediaries along with dismissal of opportunistic behavior. To understand why such an incident happened in the first place, it is important to identify the kind of scheme led by Madoff. It is called a Ponzi scheme. In a Ponzi scheme, an unsustainably big pool of investors must be maintained to keep it afloat.

It begins with a simple promise to a few investors of doubling an amount they decided to invest. Rather than investing that money and doubling it, the person involved in the scheme takes money from a successive round of investors and the scheme continues (Knapp, 2011). The formula is ROI-R-I. The reason why the Ponzi scheme went unnoticed for so long was partly because of Madoff's reputation and a huge regulatory hole.

This major discrepancy some say (regulators) was brought on by limited resources, lack of coordination and communication, and a fragmented oversight among agencies. Regulators could not uncover fraud and instead played catch up, especially with Madoff because he understood how the market worked. For example, he never collected a management fee, effectively preventing the raising of red flags with regulators. He also maintained everything without creation of customer accounts allowing Finra to treat it as counterparty. Probes were made as early as 1992 and again in 1999, 2006, and 2008 (Knapp, 2011).

Yet nothing was ever substantiated to the point Madoff would be arrested. That is why the government aimed to centralize regulation in order to avoid cases like Madoff and his Ponzi scheme. In regards to the ten million dollar investment, independent auditors must have assessed the materiality of investment, the amount and nature of assets, transactions, and liabilities executed, and the exact risks that may reveal a realistic likelihood of quantifiable misstatement to the firm's combined financial statements.

This can be done by establishing accuracy of accounts that can confirm and display the existence of recorded assets. To accomplish this, the auditor must employ a variety of audit tools that includes a review of which audit procedures were used, materiality decisions and risk assessments, and adopted analytical measures as stated initially. These processes help the auditor recognize control risks that may contribute to the observed misstatements in accounting information and balance sheets.

To confirm accuracy, the auditor must carefully review key transactions that will help ensure investors are not swindled by investment advisors like Bernie Madoff. Such actions will keep overstatements of the financial health of an investor's money to a minimum and offer integral evidence that will help lead future financial decisions for the investment firm. Other issues like check kitting can be handled via conducting banking reconciliations with any and all operative accounts.

This kind of procedure allows the auditor to establish actual bank balanced, shining light on any discrepancies existing within the accounts. A peer review consists of an independent assessment by a peer of the work from a professional entity within the same industry (Fountain, 2016). Peer reviews include a detailed examination of any accounting work from the company by another company that has no affiliations or connections with the professional entity being audited. This allows for an independent qualification/corroboration of accounted displayed to auditor or clients.

The exercise guarantees the firm audited maintained industry standards and keeps accounting practices above board with any conflicting interests eliminated. If Madoff's firm would have undergone a peer review, his fraudulent actions would have been recognized because the peer review process raises questions on resource capability. For example, Madoff only had one accountant (Friehling and Horowitz) handle large accounts presenting questionable behavior within the firm.

If a fellow accountant performed a peer review of Friehling and Horowitz, he or she would see the lack of work done by Friehling and Horowitz in relation to accounting and auditing. The accounting firm ran by three people, with Mr. Friehling being the sole auditor, was employed by Madoff to oversee the financial processes within Madoff's firm (Fountain, 2016).

When Freihling himself confessed to the AICPA in 1993 in a letter, that he did not perform audits, he stated he did not need a peer review conducted and therefore the peer review would not have gone through. However, because they still did accounting, a peer review may have gone through in that area, potentially paving the way for discovery of the Ponzi scheme through the misleading of investors.

Imagining the peer review was performed, Friehling and Horowitz would have been discovered to have not done anything they stated they did in relation to BMIS. For example, the SEC alleges Friehling and Horowitz knew of the annual audit reports distributed by BMIS to Madoff clients. The problem comes from these statements being materially false due to the lack of meaningful audits performed by Friehling and Horowitz. Mr.

Friehling stated earlier he did not perform audits, and it was later discovered he did not perform procedure that would confirm and verify transactions from BMIS securities held for their customers. The audits were either not performed or did not comply with GAAP or GAAS guidelines and failed to verify liabilities, verify custody of securities and purchase by BLMIS and review material sources, including commissions pertaining to BLMIS revenue, among other things. Along with lack of auditing, Mr.

Freihling did not test internal controls over areas lie payment of invoices and BLMIS' redemption of customer funds. To identify Madoff's Ponzi scheme, if one were Markopolos, one strategy would be examining the 'clean audit opinions via the Big Four accountants'. The Big Four have yet to identify on their own, a multibillion dollar fraud. Markopolos stated in one of his interviews, the Big Four may have aided and abetted such frauds.

And with audit fees being low and audits performed often by a young person in their 20's with little experience in auditing, there is a large area to play with when it comes to.