It’s 1992 and business is booming on the 19th floor of the Lipstick Building in midtown Manhattan. Here, Wall Street statesman Bernie Madoff presides over his “risk-less” trading empire. The man is revered as a magician: a god of finance renowned for being “almost all-knowing” about the market. A warm family atmosphere exudes from his immaculate offices, up and down which Madoff is known to parade with a cigar clamped between his lips, swivelling a computer monitor back into position if he deems it an inch askew. No plants or photo frames are permitted on desks. The colour scheme, replicated in Madoff’s private jet, must be adhered to like the man. Yes, it’s true that he can be a brutal, controlling bully but he’s also a kind, generous, brilliant family man. You get the drift. This is how the myths of such men are spun. Just once, on a serious documentary such as Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street (Netflix), I’d love a talking head to say: “He wasn’t an evil genius. He was a nasty, mediocre, morally bankrupt, dangerous arsehole.” Maybe next time.
Two floors down is another business. Madoff’s secret unregistered investment advisory firm, born in the early years of his career and dodgy from the outset. No trades take place here. Madoff takes the money, promises a return, then gives it to someone else. It’s a Ponzi scheme, and by the time the game’s up more than a decade later it’ll be worth a staggering $64bn. Here, fake paper trails and computer systems are created by working-class high-school graduates groomed from a young age to do Madoff’s dirty work. In stark contrast to the 19th floor, it’s a mess of paper, mid-1980s computers, dot matrix printers, filing cabinets, and an area known as The Cage where, according to one anonymous ex-17th floor employee, “everything was going down”. “Holy shit,” is a former FBI agent’s response as they recall the moment in 2008 when his team stormed the building and the scale of the biggest criminal enterprise in the history of Wall Street was revealed. “It was like walking into a time warp.” And yet everyone turned a blind eye, for decades.
