The Big Four accounting firms are so bad at catching fraud that they couldn’t even catch a cold, with incentives in the industry totally screwed up. That’s the view of the of the whistleblower who uncovered the $65 billion Madoff Ponzi scheme and he thinks fraud is endemic in the insurance industry as well.
Harry Markopolos is the former derivatives professional turned independent financial forensic investigator who spent nine years trying to convince the SEC that Madoff needed to be examined, but it was only the onset of the financial crisis and the massive redemptions he faced that forced Madoff to turn himself in.
Since then he has been a vocal critic of the SEC, writing the 2010 book ‘No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller’. In a special interview with Real Vision TV, Markopolos now has the institutionalized shortcomings of the audit world in his sights and identified the insurance industry as the next big sector for major financial fraud to come to light.
In fact, he intends to blow the lid on some major insurance frauds in 2017, which he hopes will lead to stronger regulation in the sector. Click here to see a clip of the Harry Markopolos interview on Real Vision.