Madoff's Chief Feeder Fund Exec Shamelessly Sails the Seas in His New $30 Million Yacht
I have unwelcome news of Andres Piedrahita, the brash Colombian chief shareholder of Fairfield Greenwich, the investment group mostly owned by the Noel family, that gave half their money under management -- $6.9 billion dollars -- to Bernie Madoff, and yet who took one percent of clients fees and twenty percent of their returns for supposedly doing "due diligence".
You'd think the family -- Mr Piedrahita, 50, is FG's founder, Walter Noel's oldest son-in-law -- might be lying low, given the outrage of their ruined clients and the morass of lawsuits they face. For most of them, this is so.
For Mr Piedrahita?
Au contraire.
Look no further than the website of luxury yacht sellers Camper and Nicholsons to see pictures of "Oxygen" the new €22,000,000.00 custom-made boat that Piedrahita, took possession of in June. He is now cruising the Adriatic with wife Corina Noel and their children. I am told he has plans to cruise around the Dalmatian coast and Corfu.
Recently he has been spotted in St. Tropez and in Venice. Over the weekend I was with financiers who say they've seen him out and about as if nothing ever went awry in his life. Acquaintances believe this blatant vacationing is "a tremendous risk" -- no doubt referring to the very angry Latin Americans who allegedly gave him money to invest and could not legally declare it. I have heard he would be unwise to set foot in certain places around the globe, people are so furious with him.
Having written the piece "Greenwich Meantime" for Vanity Fair magazine about Piedrahita and his family, I'd call his current ostentatious act, stupid, shameless, and deeply offensive to all those ruined by the Fairfield Greenwich investment group.
A mutual friend told me while I was reporting the Vanity Fair piece that Piedrahita used to boast he'd "ruin his own mother if he needed to in order to make money." He is exactly the type of man who gives financiers an appalling identity at the worst possible time.
Just as the government and business leaders worldwide are doing their best to steady the seas and fix the economy, uniting the fragile bond between Wall Street and Main Street, the last thing they need is this icon of unadulterated greed and pomposity displaying his allegedly ill-gotten wealth like a peacock displaying his feathers. Recently I interviewed the chairman of one of the world's biggest banks. "We do not own a single corporate plane" he said with great pride.
I can only hope that the legal system does its work thoroughly but swiftly, and that we never have to hear about Mr. Piedrahita and his planes or his yachts ever again. Alas, I expect to be proven wrong.
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Perhaps the Oxygen should be scuttled and sent to the bottom of the Adriatic with Mr. Piedrahita tied securely to the helm.
Once on the sea floor, he will most certainly feel at home among all the other bottom feeders.
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Poor man , it is a shame he could not afford a decent boat.
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Wanna kill Wall street ALL americans are to NOT PAY one dime to their credit cards or mortagages for 3 months, and remove ALL of your money from the stock market...tht'd bring em down...from THE PEOPLE. we are 95% of this economy and get ZERO respect...close our wallets to these schiesters and watch em squirm and fall !!! Then WE THE PEOPLE will have taken control WITHOUT marches or revolution in the historical sense...anyone game ??
Investigate and Indict him !
This is Repulsive, Excessive and Rapacious of the USA Taxpayers and the People Andres Piedrahita has HURT !
Pirate fodder.
Mr. Piedrahita could easily avoid working hard trying to sell his yacht cruising the Mediterranean so tirelessly. He could instead turn the boat directly over to the victims' trustee, Mr. Picard. I am sure Mr. Picard would be delighted to spare Mr. Piedrahita such a grueling task and sell the boat himself on behalf of the victims.
30 million to get a "maritime woody", and it's ugly.
Adriatic ??
i sure hope for him he did not take and lost money from russians . they sure have a different way to deal with this type of persons...
I think floating around on what looks like a low-income housing complex is punishment enough. Square windows?!?!
at least it serves to show where the money is
oink oink, what gluttony, what vanity and above all, what stupidity!
So? Another pirate in a ship...hardly a surprise.
absolutely: oink oink, what gluttony, what vanity, and above all what stupidity!
you dont just go into a yacht shop and buy one of these the way you do a chevy. this thing has been bought, what do you want him to do keep it in dry dock? he prob is getting sued 10 ways until sunday, he might as well enjoy the thing before it gets repossesed
this is the same crazy logic that made people cancel all their conferences so they wouldnt be seen to be enjoying themselves. the consequence of which was people not getting together to plot solutions to the problems, and a million lost jobs in the hospitality industry
well done HuffPo'ers
How about selling it and reimbursing some of the money he stole?
HE won't do it, but hopefully he'll be made to do it.
Well done yourself, condoning behavior like this from someone who made millions off of many, many people and charities' tragedy. And companies should NOT have canceled their junkets, costing big bucks? Earth to pat: they weren't there to find solutions. They were on a JUNKET, patting themselves on their collective backs for god-knows-what.
Look guys - Say what you want about this guy - that yacht has been in planning and building stages for years, so it's not like this all happened after it all hit the fan.
easy to say when you are not a Madoff victim
Maybe not, but it could have been sold. It shows the basic personality of someone who by his own words would have done anything for a buck.
"He is exactly the type of man who gives financiers an appalling identity at the worst possible time"
Naaah. They ALWAYS have an appalling identity, no matter what the time.
This character, however, is a FAR cry from poor Mr. Villehuchet who committed suicidefollowing Madoff's fall. There ARE honorable financiers out there. This is just the worst example of someone who has no honor no matter where he does. All trades suffer from these low types. Aside from this, the fact that he thinks he can afford to take such risks should serve the victim's trustees as a clue in demonstrating how financially comfortable he feels. He is surely hiding quite a stash.
Because this guy is a hell of a flawed individual does not mean everyone else in the industry is. There are all kinds, including heroes like Warren Buffett. You are looking at the lowest end of the spectrum.....It exists in any human endeavor.... even in monasteries.
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