If you needed yet more proof that 2nd Place is the first loser, allow me to present the sad case of Arthur Nadel, who died in prison on Monday at age 80. Who, you say? Exactly. He's basically a nobody in today's context of financial scam artists, but if it hadn't been for Bernie Madoff this guy would've been big news.
You see, Nadel and a few co-conspirators ran a number of sham hedge funds in South Florida, and boasted AUM of over $300 million when in fact the funds had less than $500,000 in them. In all, Nadel pocketed over $160 million in a massive Ponzi scheme. Redemption requests brought the house of cards down in January of 2009, and Artie high-tailed it out of Florida. He left cryptic suicide notes and paranoid predictions that someone was going to kill him for two weeks before turning himself in.
Again, this would have been huge news if Bernie Madoff hadn't turned himself in just a month earlier behind a previously unthinkable $50 billion Ponzi scheme. Ironically, Nadel ended up in the same prison as Madoff but got none of the same media recognition despite orchestrating the largest scam in southwest Florida history. While the media published reports about Madoff's daily comings and goings at Butner Federal Correction Complex, Nadel's death on Monday garnered nothing more than an update on the prison's website indicating that he was deceased. No cause of death was given.
So you see, kids, there's a lesson here. In whatever you choose to do in life, go balls out. Like the old Nike ad said, you don't win the silver - you lose the gold.
If you're gonna be a bear, be a grizzly bear.
That is all.
Who runs and then comes back when they are obviously guilty? Take all that money you clearly stole and go to a non extradition treaty country.
Especially at his age. But then the same could be said of Madoff. From what I've read, however, Madoff is probably safer in prison. A lot of his European feeder funds were just cartel laundromats so he's probably got a lot of the wrong people pissed off at him. Might explain why he's paying for mob protection in the pen.
If I was his age with that kind of cash there is no way on this Earth I would ever go to Prison. You would spend 100X what I stole trying to find me then 10X that fighting the SWAT team of lawyers I hired to keep my wrinkled ass from getting shipped off my new Island nation (where I had already made large donations to the parties in power to ensure their interests were where I wanted them to be).
Fucking amateur hour.
I think the reason you don't hear about people pulling it off is because they get greedy or feel secure in their crime. Take Bernie for example. He ran that shit for DECADES!!! You're a criminal. He should have taken his profits and run when he had the chance. They also make the mistake of having a family which gives the po po leverage.
I think the reason Roman Polanski gets away with it and Madoff/Nadel doesn't is because when you fuck around with financial funds that creates ripples across the global environment, and no first world country is going to protect you then. God damn Madoff, taking the spotlight off of more mediocre criminals.
Remember the guy who tried to fake his own death by putting his private plane on autopilot assuming it was going to run out of fuel in the ocean, real genius at work.
Edit: Just to add, I don't understand why people don't commit suicide when they screw up anymore. Is it because white collar prison is so swanky now?
Here is another one. Obviously a total creep, not a fund manager, but still a rich guy. I think the mistake was going to Puerto Vallarta (or Mexico to begin with) instead of somewhere safer: http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/sexual_assault/andrew_…
You guys should look up the Bre-X Gold scam and de Guzeman who some say faked his death by throwing a dead body out of a helicopter over a jungle. Rumor has it he is still alive somewhere....
Larry Hillblom (the "H" in DHL) is another one to look up if you want an interesting story about someone possibly faking their death and getting away with it. He even upped the ante - his pilot and a business partner actually did die in the attempt (assuming he did in fact fake the whole thing).
I remember when Dog took down Luster, too. The Mexicans absolutely lost their shit that an American bounty hunter would come down to Mex and lay down the law like that. The article you linked to doesn't tell the whole story. Dog and his crew got busted by the Mexicans and were in jail and the US State Dept or somebody at that level had to negotiate to get them release. The Mexicans were seriously pissed. Funny shit.
Happy, as far as a guy like Madoff getting away with a life on the run, Allen Stanford had to have the best shot at it. That motherfucker practically owned the island nation of Antigua and he still got his ass in a sling. Seriously, this guy was like royalty down island. When he went down he took the whole Antiguan government with him. I guess it isn't that easy to keep a low profile on the run when you've got that much money and you're that well known.
I think the only reason Polanski gets away with it is that it's a way for the French to throw the US a big passive-aggressive "fuck you" and it's a case most people don't even remember anymore. I feel sorry for his ass if he ever gets picked up outside of France, however, because a US prosecutor will ship him off to federal-pound-me-in-the-ass prison quicker than shit just on principle alone.
polanski and marc rich didn't rip off any mobsters. they just offended our sensibilities about sex and with whom we should trade oil.
Polanski is someone who doesn't deserve to walk around my streets, whether or not the girl consented to it is besides the fact that he is fucked in the head for bringing a girl he knew to be 14 years old into his home to have sex with. If those are the types of people the French find acceptable, to each their own.
the french don't seem to mind child rapists, yes. and marc rich, with his ironically unneccessary pardon, proves that any man has a price.
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