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SEC Pores Over How it Missed the Madoff Fraud
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(June 1, 2009 - Monday) - http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/government/sec-pores-missed-madoff-fraud/
Monday, June 01, 2009
Peter Barnes,
Senior Washington Correspondent
FOXBusiness
An investigation by the inspector general of the Securities and Exchange Commission into how the SEC missed Bernie Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme has reached deep into the agency, a new report shows.
In SEC Inspector General David Kotz’s regular semi-annual report to Congress on the SEC's operations -- the first such report first since former SEC chairman Christopher Cox ordered him to launch the internal Madoff review -- Kotz provided some of the details of the ongoing probe.
According to the report, Kotz and his team of investigators have ordered at least 27 SEC employees who were involved in Madoff examinations or investigations to produce all emails covering their Madoff work. So far, the IG has collected 1.3 million e-mails from them and others in the Washington, New York and Boston SEC offices.
View the full report on the SEC Inspector General's Web site.
Kotz has order the agency's Office of Compliance, Inspections and Examinations to turn over all documents related to seven Madoff examinations over 11 years.
The inspector general's office interviewed 44 witnesses through March. It also had planned "numerous" additional interviews in April and May, according to the semi-annual report, which also updates Congress on other ongoing IG investigations, as well as the agency’s budget and general operations
Kotz also said he has retained a forensic accounting and litigation consulting firm for the internal Madoff investigation and that it has completed a review and analysis of all of the SEC's Madoff “work papers.”
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