'Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street' : The True Story Behind the Netflix Docuseries About Bernie Madoff

Here's everything to know about the rise and fall of Bernie Madoff.

Notoriously regarded as the disgraced financier behind the biggest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history, Madoff was a con artist infamous for defrauding investors of an estimated $17.5 billion (or as much as $65 billion, including fictional profits) over the span of 20 years.

Netflix's latest docuseries, Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street, details the true story behind the New York City-based investor, from his humble beginnings to becoming one of the most influential powerbrokers on Wall Street — featuring insight from whistleblowers, employees, investigators and victims.

The streamer's docuseries isn't the only retelling of the true crime story, as it's been chronicled in previous titles including 2016's two-part miniseries Madoff on ABC and 2017's The Wizard of Lies biopic (an HBO film based on the Diana Henriques book of the same).

Between the crimes he committed and what he was charged with, here's everything to know about Madoff.

Who is Bernie Madoff?

Bernie Madoff was born in Queens, New York on April 29, 1938. After earning a degree at Hofstra University in 1960 and studying at Brooklyn Law School for one year, he founded Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities.

His self-started company began as a penny stock trader and grew to be one of Wall Street's most bankable firms. At one point, he was a former chairman of the NASDAQ (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) stock market.

The financial big-wig ran his own market-maker firm for nearly 50 years before being caught in 2008 as the mastermind behind the biggest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history.

What crimes did Bernie Madoff commit?

As a result of his legitimate operations, he launched an investment-advisory business as part of his firm — which by the 1990s, ultimately perpetrated a multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors around the world for decades.

Named after 1920s swindler Charles Ponzi, the scheme "is a ploy where earlier investors are paid with funds given by subsequent investors." According to NASAA, "Claims of underlying investments are bogus; very few, if any, actual physical assets or financial investments exist."

The fraudulent investing scam "bursts" when the number of investors grow, potential new investors dwindle, money lessens and the con artist can not keep up required with the payments. In Madoff's case, he convinced his investors that their money had been placed in legitimate investments by providing them with fabricated account statements and other documentation.

While they "appeared" real, there were no "actual investments and no actual returns." In fact, Madoff used the funds from new investors to pay the initial investors' "returns."

How was Bernie Madoff caught?

Madoff's scam spanned decades; however, the U.S. economic crisis in 2008 spawned the financial swindle's decline as the fraudster's clients took money out faster than he could bring in new cash. That same year, his two sons outed him to the FBI on Dec. 10 after he admitted that his investment-advisory business was fake and headed towards bankruptcy.

"We knew that we couldn't live with this information and not do something about it," Andrew told 60 Minutes in 2011.

Madoff was arrested the next day on allegations that his company, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, had swindled approximately $65 billion from individuals, businesses and charities.

His victims spread wide, affecting banks, hedge funds, universities, celebrities (including Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick) and charities (such as Steven Spielberg's Wunderkinder Foundation). "Mr. Madoff was accountable for a loss to investors of over $13 billion," a letter from the Butner Federal Correction Complex read, according to CNN.

What was Bernie Madoff charged with?

Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 felony charges related to fraud, money laundering, making false statements and perjury. He left a life of luxury — having owned multiple homes, boats and expensive artwork and jewelry — for one behind bars, receiving a sentence of 150 years in prison, which started in July 2009.

In early 2020, Madoff told The Washington Post that he was suffering from terminal kidney failure, and sought a compassionate release so he could live out the rest of his life a free man.

"I'm terminally ill," he said in a phone interview with the outlet. "There's no cure for my type of disease. So, you know, I've served. I've served 11 years already, and, quite frankly, I've suffered through it."

His request was denied later that year.

Where is Bernie Madoff now?

Madoff died in prison on April 14, 2021, at age 82. Scott Taylor, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, confirmed the news to PEOPLE in an email but made no mention of his cause of death at the time. It is believed he died of natural causes.

Where is Bernie Madoff's family now?

Madoff's only children, sons Mark and Andrew, died in the wake of their father's arrest. Mark died by suicide in his Manhattan apartment in 2010. Meanwhile, Andrew blamed his father for his recurrence of the rare cancer mantle-cell lymphoma, which ultimately led to his death in 2014.

Furthermore, Madoff's only sister and brother-in-law (Sondra Wiener and Marvin Wiener, respectively) died in an apparent murder-suicide in February 2022. As of 2021, his wife Ruth Madoff has been living in Connecticut.