In a bizarre twist last night, the latest revelations that the banks were duped by a multi-billionaire American fraudster have themselves been revealed as a fraudulent scam. Global financial institutions claim to have lost billions on a pyramid investment scam run by a revered Wall Street financier called Bernard Madoff.
However, one insider - who asked not to be named in case he loses his £300,00 per year job as Sub-Prime Offshore Unsecured Investments Director, told us -
"There's basically no such person as far as the City goes. We just decided it would be good PR for the bank if it looked like we were the victim of a massive financial crime perpetrated by someone else. So we looked up the local paper and found a story about an old pensioner that couldn't pay his heating bill in Scunthorpe, and decided to use his name for the guy who defrauded us. Good old Bernard Madoff, eh ? Lives in a council flat in Scunthorpe. Bless him, we'll probably have a whip-round to help pay his gas bill this winter.
"With a bit of luck the Government will give us a few extra billion to keep us going - they'll feel sorry for us now. Some people might say we're heartless doing this, but we couldn't have people in the City thinking that we're incompetent. This way it looks like its not our fault - we were scammed by an unscrupulous and greedy criminal. People like that should be locked up, I reckon"
