Buried Treasure? Where did Madoff hide the billions?

I’m disappointed with you, Bernard Madoff

When I was a small boy, one of my friends on the block told me this story about a local man turned pirate who had stolen a whole pile of gold coins from a bank. He kept them in a chest which he reputedly buried near where he lived, which was near where we lived, and then he died. Both of us had read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and we knew all about criminals and stolen gold, so Pete and I spent an entire school vacation period digging up the neighbors’ gardens in search of the chest of gold coins. I can’t remember what we planned to do with the loot, or if we were going to tell anyone when we unearthed it.

What would you do with millions/billions?

I do remember that we were going to be very rich and would buy big black shiny Packard cars with our new-found riches. In those days there were no such things as Short Term Loans so, in our little minds, you had to steal in order to get your hands on a bunch of money.

Along comes Bernard

Madoff is the world’s ultimate criminal. We have never seen the likes of him. Not for him the hijacking of a train to pull a paltry $3 million bullion robbery, not for him a tunnel job under the street into the vaults of the First National Bank. Madoff sat in his plush director’s high-backed leather chair in his office on the 99th floor and ripped off the world in style. One can almost admire the man.

Can you say billions?

We are not talking about swiping a million or ten million dollars like all the other masterminds. We are talking about ripping off hundreds of billions of dollars. Like this: $600,000,000,000.

Where is it all?

An amount like that is probably all over, in my garden and in yours, but there’s no point in starting to dig, you won’t find anything. And that’s part of the reason that the prosecutors are determined to leave Madoff and his wife with nothing after telling a Manhattan court that they consider more than $100 million in assets, most of it listed in her name, the fruits of her husband’s crimes. It’s all they can find but they just have to get their hands on something.

A Steinway piano and silverware

The prosecutors include a $39,000 Steinway piano and $65,000 in silverware in items it said it will try to force the Madoffs to forfeit. The list was in a three-page document filed in U.S. District Court late Sunday. A lawyer representing some charred investors said the government’s aggressive approach isn’t surprising.

What else is there?

The Madoffs will probably end up losing all their assets, a $7 million Manhattan penthouse, an $11 million Palm Beach, Florida home, a $1 million home in Cap d’ Antibe, France, and a $3 million home in Montauk. Mrs. Madoff has $17 million in cash and $45 million in securities in bank accounts. Then there is a $7 million yacht in France, a $320,000 Montauk boat, as well as a $2.2 million fishing boat in Palm Beach, Florida.

The cars are modest, a 1999 Mercedes SLK convertible in Florida, a 2001 Mercedes station wagon and a 2004 Volkswagen.

Where’s the rest?

Bernard, the arithmetic is simple: $600,000,000,000 minus $100,000,000 equals $599,900,000,000.

Bernard, what did you do with the rest of the money? Should I start digging?