Someone being interviewed today on CNBC about the Madoff situation said, "all one had to do was download a Due Diligence Questionaire" to see that there were red flags. As though this was a simple thing.
So I did this. Based on the answers of this random Google entry from a hedge fund, the questionaire was useless. Essentially the answers hid behind "proprietary."
http://www.autumngold.com/CTADocs/Ketch_Brochure.pdf
But the following Barron's article of today spells out what the pros were expecting: to benefit from Madoff's front-running of the order flow.
So the crooks (fund of funds, etc.) who thought they knew what was going on got burned themselves!
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB122931054024706045.html?mod=9_0002_b_online_exclusives_weekday_r1