Did Bernie Madoff die in 2009?

Bernie Madoff ran the largest Ponzi scheme in history.

The total amount missing was nearly $65Bn, and he was sentenced to 150 years in jail in 2009. Many remember him committing suicide shortly afterwards in jail, and are surprised to hear he didn't do so. 

He was the chairman of NASDAQ, which would have helped enormously with his credibility when pulling off his scam. His firm had a "special arrangement" with Wall St which enabled it to bypass the strict checks and balances other firms were subjected to and directly executed orders over the counter from retail brokers.

He did attempt suicide with his wife in 2008 on Christmas Eve, so perhaps news of this came out at the time and people thought he was sucessful.

NASDAQ

Madoff began his firm in 1960, when shortly afterwards he obtained a $50,000 loan where he developed an innovatig computer system to transfer the loan data, rather than manually as was the norm at the time. As it became more widely adopted, it then was formalised into what we know today as NASDAQ. He became the chairman, and his firm remained at the heart of the system being, at one point, the largest market maker present. In 2008 at the time of his arrest, his firm was the 6th largest market maker on Wall St.

Alive in 2020

Madoff filed for compassionate release from prison in Feb 2020 on the grounds he only had 18 months left to live due to severe kidney failure.

His son Mark committed suicide two years after his arrest, ,and his other son died of lymphoma in 2014, so again all these deaths surrounding the Madoff family might have morphed, Chinese whispers style, into the story of the death of Madoff himself.