05 February,2009 11:12 AM IST | | Agencies
Harry Markopolos, the man who waged a decade-long campaign to blow the whistle on fallen money manager Bernard Madoff, has told the US Congress that he had feared for his safety. Markopolos also assailed the Securities and Exchange Commission, accusing it of "roaring like a lion and biting like a flea".
The SEC failed to act despite receiving credible allegations of fraud from Markopolos about Madoff's ponzi scheme since 2000. Due to the agency's inaction, "I became fearful for the safety of my family," said Markopolos.
He told a House subcommittee hearing that "the SEC is ... captive to the industry it regulates and is afraid" to bring big cases against prominent individuals.
Madoff, a prominent Wall Street figure, was arrested in December after allegedly confessing to bilking investors of more than $50 billion in what the authorities say was possibly the largest ever pyramid scheme.
His repeated warnings to SEC staff that Madoff was running a massive scam have cast Markopolos, a securities industry executive and fraud investigator, as an unheeded prophet in the scandal.u00a0
