Madoff Enablers Who Say They Were Duped Winked at Suspected Front-Running

[Purveyor]

Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) -- For Swiss banker Werner Wolfer, the memory of his first encounter with one of Bernard Madoff’s emissaries nine years ago is as clear as the waters of Lake Geneva.

To hear Patrick Littaye talk, the Wall Street money manager could walk on those waters. “It was like a religion,” Wolfer, 57, says of the promise of steady returns, which would be echoed by other acolytes. “These people firmly believed in the story.”

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‘It All Looked So Good’

The truth turned out to be something else -- and far more complex than a criminal masterminding a $50 billion Ponzi scheme that bilked investors from Palm Beach to Paris, as Madoff allegedly confessed to doing on Dec. 11.

If the 70-year-old money manager was running a con, then his marketers like Access International, wittingly or not, were part of the scam.

The purported mission of such feeder funds was to vet hedge funds for wealthy clients. Instead, the line between victim and perpetrator was blurred. Middlemen like Littaye funneled billions of dollars to Madoff, even, in some cases, when they suspected he was engaged in questionable trading practices. In return, they reaped hundreds of millions of dollars in client fees.

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[naaman fletcher]

1. the old ladies

didn't know anything. But I know for a fact that the pros who had money with madoff all thought he made his returns be front-running his brokerage order book. I have no sympathy that they are upset to find out that they were the ones being cheated.