Peer blames Madoff fraud on regulators

A London peer who fell victim to Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff today blamed US regulators for their failures.

Lord Jacobs, the ex-joint treasurer of the Liberal Democrat party, said the US Securities and Exchange Commission could have saved billions if it had acted on information years ago claiming Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme, a fraudulent operation that pays returns to investors from their own money.

Lord Jacobs of Belgravia, who lost several million of his estimated £128 million fortune, said: "I want to concentrate on the terrible regulators who could have saved the livelihoods of many victims if they had acted as far back as 1999 and certainly in 2006. The regulators were given overwhelming evidence and did nothing."

Madoff is behind bars today in New York after admitting the £47 billion fraud involving hundreds of investors.