Where is the money?

According to this NYT article about 12 billion was withdrawn from Madoff's firm before his arrest, half of it or 6 billion only 3 months before. Unfortunately, the nebulous trail leads to some so called "feeder funds" so who knows if it will ever make its way back to its rightful owners.

What I find fascinating about this whole affair, notwithstanding the pain of financial loss which his victims have suffered, is the ineptitude of the SEC which investigated and cleared him.

Also, the fact that if the economy had not turned as sour as it did as quickly as it did, his fraud might never have been exposed even though the signs were clearly there for years and different participants in the financial markets had been raising the alarm consistently and publicly for a long time. Ironically, because the scheme was so massive and far reaching, when it finally was exposed it accelerated the economic downturn even more.