Hindsight is 20-20.
In fact some of the best financiers, such as Warren Buffett, have provided well-above-average returns consistently; just not as consistently as Bernie Madoff.
Even finance professionals were taken in by Madoff, and only a few figured out it must be a scam.
The old saying is “you can’t cheat an honest man”, but Bernie Madoff proved it wrong. He was a diabolically clever scammer.
Understood. But it wasn’t just “well-above-average returns” that was the tip-off here. It was the fact that the returns were almost identical from one year to the next. Even a low-risk, low-return investment portfolio won’t provide a consistent return from one year to the next. When Madoff was consistently reporting 10%-12% returns for his clients, this should have been a major warning flag.