Bernie Madoff's Programmers Arrested 280
ZipK writes "With their former boss cooling his heels on a 150-year sentence, programmers Jerome O'Hara and George Perez are now in the US Attorney's crosshairs. They've been arrested and charged with criminal conspiracy, and 'accused of producing false documents and trading records at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC in New York.' Apparently Madoff's fraud was too large and too complex to be foisted entirely by hand."
Re:Moral of the story: (Score:5, Funny)
crontab (Score:5, Funny)
And that's why we have cellscripts and conjobs
What's the motivation? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Moral of the story: (Score:5, Funny)
If you destroy evidence, make sure you destroy the backups, too.
Also, make sure you destroy evidence of your destruction of evidence and backups.
The REAL lesson of this. (Score:3, Funny)
When you are a little fish . . . run to your lawyer, then together make yourselves the very best friends that the FBI ever had.
Re:Moral of the story: (Score:5, Funny)
Should have used perl.
Re:Moral of the story: (Score:5, Funny)
Don't forget to destroy the evidence of your destruction of the evidence of the destruction of the evidence and backups and its backups and its backups.
Re:Moral of the story: (Score:5, Funny)
Don't forget to destroy the evidence of your destruction of the evidence of the destruction of the evidence and backups and its backups and its backups.
This is going to turn into one of two things: A painting of Stephen Colbert, or an episode of Black Adder.
I'm good with either outcome, really.
Re:Moral of the story: (Score:5, Funny)
... and when your boss gets 150 years, get your ass to a country without an extradition treaty with the US.
Polanski's corollary: Stay there.
Re:Well, of course. (Score:3, Funny)
If you've followed the details of the Madoff scandal, it was obvious that it required substantial computer support.
Each month, Madoff's investors got statements which showed fictitious trades and fictitious profits. The phony trades were for real stocks, with prices which were (almost) real. But the trades were chosen retrospectively, which is like betting on a race after it's run. So superficially reasonable statements came out.
This was all generated on an AS-400 that had been in use for this for several decades.
The software wasn't very good. If they'd been better at it, they could have generated statements which showed trades which exactly matched real trades of others (from the "tape"; trades are public but traders are anonymous), delivered trade confirmations every day, and still shown phony profits just by picking trades randomly distributed around the 75% of each day's trades. That would survive external examination, but not a real audit. Close looks at Madoff statements show trades which could not possibly have occurred; the price is outside the day's trading range. Sloppy.
YOUR HIRED!
your friendly Goldman Sachs recruiter,
Beelzebub
Re:Alan Johnson is a twat (Score:5, Funny)
any particular kind of metal you'd like the chains made from
Mercury.
Have they not seen Office Space? (Score:3, Funny)
I hope they enjoy their stay at Federal Pound-Me-In-The-Ass Prison.
"Bernie Madoff's Programmers Arrested"???... (Score:5, Funny)
And this, boys and girls.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Right after the revolution (Score:3, Funny)
Come to think of it, you have a good point...
Re:Moral of the story: (Score:4, Funny)
Popo's corollary: And if you're a far bigger criminal enterprise (cough, Goldman Sachs, cough, JPMC) kick back and laugh as the Justice system locks up the small fry's.