Madoff 'astonished' the SEC didn't catch him in 2006

Bernie Madoff told H. David Kotz, inspector general of the Securities and Exchange Commission, he was "astonished" that the SEC didn't put an end to his Ponzi scheme in 2006, after he gave the agency his account number at the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation as part of an investigation.

"This was perhaps the most egregious failure in the enforcement investigation of Madoff," Kotz's report said. "They never verified Madoff's purported trading with any independent third parties." Had the SEC cross-referenced Madoff's account statements with DTCC's trading records, they would have "immediately realized that Madoff was not trading in anywhere near the volume that he was showing on the customer statements."