High Life

10 January 2009

Interesting season

My friend Charles Fix, who lives two or three chalets down from me, lost 600 million greenbacks, most of it his own. Needless to say, he is not best pleased, and the man who got him to invest is one Andrés Piedrahita, a Colombian turned money manager and multimillionaire on the back of Bernie Madoff. The last time Piedrahita saw the mother of my children in Geneva airport he remarked how surprised he was that she was flying commercial. Now that’s what I call a gent. He is at present lying low.

Piedrahita, a short, loud man, is married to one of Walter Noel’s daughters, Noel being the top recruiter for Madoff’s fund, along with Jacob Ezra Merkin, in the Fairfield Greenwich Group, a fund of funds that also worked as a ‘feeder fund’ for Madoff. Walter Noel used his sons-in-law as recruiters, finding suckers for Madoff’s schemes. Philip Toub, a man I’ve known as long as I’ve known his brother-in-law Piedrahita, is also an old Gstaad hand. All these bums have now put up a wall of lawyers between themselves and their victims, which might be the way democracy works, but that don’t make it right, as they used to say in Brooklyn.

In fact, Madoff used Jewish charities to build up immunity from snoopers. Anyone suspected of being anti-Madoff was leaned on — heavily. There were many who steered clear of Madoff nonetheless. In 2003, the French Société Générale figured that Madoff’s numbers didn’t add up and placed him on its blacklist.

The trouble is that the US government will not go all the way while prosecuting Madoff. Uncle Sam would if there were pension funds involved, but going to bat for some rich white Europeans is not Sam’s habit. Obviously Madoff has hidden assets, perhaps in the billions, and most of his feeder fund managers have money, too. I don’t see any of them wearing striped pyjamas any time soon. Smart lawyers, the best money can buy, will defend them against underpaid government mouthpieces. The leading players so far have maintained a stony silence, making sure to avoid any kind of apology or statement of responsibility. Villehuchet’s suicide is probably seen as a dumb act by the Madoffs, Picciottos, Piedrahitas, Toubs and Noels of this world. It’s going to be an interesting Gstaad season, to say the least.

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Peter McCormick

January 8th, 2009 3:06pm Report this comment

Merkin, whose name appears in the antepenultimate paragraph, means pubic wig, the OED tells me. Coincidence?

Lorenzo

January 9th, 2009 10:03am Report this comment

Taki...allways spot on!!! Bravo

Minnie Ovens

January 9th, 2009 12:27pm Report this comment

Oh Gosh!
Memories of Geneva in 1968 and I.O.S. meetings.
At least Bernie Cornfeld was a human being unlike these members of the slug family.
My apologies to real slugs.

richard Saltiel

January 9th, 2009 8:15pm Report this comment

well done Taki finally someone comes out and says it the way it is ... these scoundrels bunch of marauding gangsters should be taken to task and you have done just that 'gloves off' - i raise my hat to you. THEY SHOULD NOT GET AWAY WITH IT, THEY MUST BE HELD PERSONALLY ACCOUNTABLE

christian jacques

January 11th, 2009 5:12pm Report this comment

Bravo ! i can only congratulate you to for your true article.

David Short

January 12th, 2009 3:17pm Report this comment

Is this writer an anti-Semite? Does anyone else feel his remarks about emigrating to Israel offensive to all who died and suffered in the Holocaust?

What kind of people allow this comment to be published?

David Short

January 12th, 2009 3:23pm Report this comment

All rich people got that way through crime and violence.

It is hypocritical to go on about 'new money'.

Just because your ancestors are dead and buried thugs and were able buy into 'aristocracy' does not make them any better than modern, living common thugs.

Jonathan

January 13th, 2009 12:15pm Report this comment

Completely shocking article. What an antisemite. Why is relevant that Madoff and de Picciotto are Jewish? What is the relevance of you moving to Israel or not?

Joe Roth

January 15th, 2009 6:04pm Report this comment

Dear Taki,
Like you, I happen to know some victims of Madoff.
What I do not understand is how come Mr. Charles Fix (a Greek gentleman like you) who I happen to have met is portrayed in your article as an innocent victim while all the jewish victims of Madoff are portrayed as scoundrels who should be "deported" from the Oberland. Piedrahita (who's not jewish) you seem to dislike because he is a snob. You are correct; he is (or was) a snob, but coming from you it is a harsh verdict indeed. There is no difference between Picciotto, Fix, Arki and all the others; the difference is only in your biased (need I say antisemitic) mind. You are a very angry man, Taki. Maybe you are right; there might be too much "snow" in Gstaad this season; you know what I mean.

Andrew Hingston

January 15th, 2009 11:43pm Report this comment

I suggest that government lawyers are rarely less good than those 'fatcats' arrayed against them. The top private lawyers (in the US at least) generally did a turn in one or another govt law department, stringing up the bad guys. That's how they learn. Madoff and his cronies will get theirs. But it won't help the gullible and greedy who helped him along. And it probably won't help the next guys either, for memories on Wall Street (and its twins around the world) are always very short when the money is rolling in.