Madoff: 'it's just one big lie'
Updated on 15 December 2008
Wall Street broker Bernard Madoff is charged with running a $50bn pyramid-type scheme to defraud investors.
In what could be the biggest financial scandal in history, he's said to have told his staff, 'it's all just one big lie'.
British banks are among the major victims, with HSBC admitting its exposure could top £600m.
RBS, partly owned by the government, put a £400m in the US-based investment scam, while Santander, which owns Abbey, invested some £2bn.
The pyramid scheme explained
Serious Fraud Office interview: Richard Alderman
The Serious Fraud Office is pushing city insiders to blow the whistle on any potentially fraudulent activity this side of the Atlantic.
Earlier Jon Snow spoke to the director of the Serious Fraud Office, Richard Alderman and started by asking him whether this call for information on fraudsters wasn't a bit late - three months after the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
