Madoff affair: the most likely scenario

He confessed, his sons denounced him... soon some were considering that he was a pacted scapegoat. Not much of a scapegoat anyhow when one is left free to remain at home and has to pay just a ridiculous bail that is infiniesinally lower than all the "lost" money.

Some even considered that the money was never lost and that was instead moved to Israel.

Maybe. But this is a much more likely scenario: expectations are that at least 30% of all hedge funds will go bankrupt in the next few months. If the fund goes bankrupt the investors get nothing but what if there is fraud instead? In that case the US law provides refunding on taxpayers' money. I don't know if the USA can afford to pay 50 billion dollars (maybe yes with the current policy of dumping the green note to promote exports at the expense of US citizens' real wealth) but this is what some already suspect as the reason for the financial superstar to confess to fraud. With such an spontaneous confession no evidence of fraud should be needed: all the wealthy investors and terrorist "charities" would get 100% their money back.

The plot could be even more twisted. I am almost sure that is anything but what is apparent.
.