But you can get statements from any stock, legit ones, and lose it all before you cash in. That’s the risk of the stock market.
The guy was a con man.
I was involved in a lot of the bank failures. I think most of the officers, owners, directors started out honestly but got into trouble trying to cover losses, trying to ride out one bad deal by making another deal but when that deal also went bad they just kept trying to fix it. Madoff seemed to start that way too but found it was so easy to lie to people he kept it up. What amazed me was that he couldn’t even spend all the money he was stealing. He couldn’t take vacations for any length of time because he couldn’t leave the office. There was only so much consumer stuff he could buy, and will he spent millions, he couldn’t spend billions. His lawyer couldn’t spend it either and that’s why they recovery $7B from him.
Trump can’t spend it. Gates can’t spend it. It just isn’t possible to spend all that money.