query: occupation jeffry picower
supports: Bernard Lawrence "Bernie" Madoff (born April 29, 1938) is an American fraudster and a former stockbroker, investment advisor, and financier. He is the former non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ stock market, and the admitted operator of a Ponzi scheme that is considered the largest financial fraud in U.S. history. In law, fraud is deliberate deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud itself can be a civil wrong (i.e., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud and/or recover monetary compensation), a criminal wrong (i.e., a fraud perpetrator may be prosecuted and imprisoned by governmental authorities) or it may cause no loss of money, property or legal right but still be an element of another civil or criminal wrong. The purpose of fraud may be monetary gain or other benefits, such as obtaining a driver's license or qualifying for a mortgage by way of false statements. A Ponzi scheme (also a Ponzi game) is a fraudulent investment operation where the operator, an individual or organization, pays returns to its investors from new capital paid to the operators by new investors, rather than from profit earned through legitimate sources. Operators of Ponzi schemes usually entice new investors by offering higher returns than other investments, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent. The Nasdaq Stock Market is an American stock exchange. It is the second-largest exchange in the world by market capitalization, behind only the New York Stock Exchange. The exchange platform is owned by Nasdaq, Inc., which also owns the Nasdaq Nordic (formerly known as OMX) and Nasdaq Baltic stock market network and several other US stock and options exchanges. The Madoff investment scandal was a major case of stock and securities fraud discovered in late 2008. In December of that year, Bernard Madoff, the former NASDAQ Chairman and founder of the Wall Street firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, admitted that the wealth management arm of his business was an elaborate Ponzi scheme. Jeffry M. Picower ( May 5 , 1942 -- October 25 , 2009 ) was an American investor involved in the Madoff investment scandal . He appears to have been the largest beneficiary of Madoff 's Ponzi scheme , and his estate settled the claims against it for $ 7.2 billion .
candidates: criminal financier founder game major platform stockbroker
answer: financier