Disgraced financier Bernie Madoff died of natural causes yesterday at the age of 82 in prison..

His death came as he was behind bars serving a 150-year sentence for financial fraud totaling nearly $65B by one estimate, the largest scam of its type uncovered in US history. 

Known early on as an investor whose advice regularly defied market dynamics, Madoff’s name eventually became synonymous with modern Ponzi schemes (how they work).

The specific type of fraud relies on using funds from new clients to generate returns for old clients—a base that grows over time—while masking the returns as investment profit. Though the scheme was long suspected by certain analysts and major Wall Street firms, the fraud wasn’t uncovered until 2008 during the Great Recession, when Madoff ran out of money to pay existing clients. 

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