MARTIN SMITH: [on camera] In other words, he would pay for what they call, "order flow?"
KATHERINE BURTON: Exactly.
MARTIN SMITH: [voice-over] What wasn't known on Wall Street was that Madoff had a side business as
an investment advisor.
DIANA HENRIQUES: The investment advisory business operated, so far as we can tell, completely under
the radar. We know to some extent that it began small. Customers of his who go back the longest
started with very small nest eggs.
MARTIN SMITH: Madoff's first clients were friends and associates recruited in places like Queens, Long
Island and the Catskills. With promised returns of around 18 percent, entire families jumped in.
As word spread, Madoff enlisted two accountants from his father-in-law's firm. First it was Frank
Avellino - on the left - and then Michael Bienes. Now facing lawsuits, Avellino refused to talk, but Bienes
agreed to tell us how Madoff brought him and Frank into the investment advisory business.
[on camera] Tell me how you got going with investing with Bernie, how that-
MICHAEL BIENES, Avellino & Bienes: Well, Saul, his father-in-law, had been doing it. He gave Frank a
piece. And I got a piece when I became a partner. It was only about $2.5 million in the account. That was
big money to me. We were only taking a small clip off the top. That's all it was. Couldn't take more, we
thought that was the rule. And we never were pigs. That's the one thing that kept us going. We were
never pigs. We were never pigs.
MARTIN SMITH: [voice-over] The arrangement was simple. With Madoff's guarantee of 20 percent or
better, Avellino and Bienes could pocket a few percentage points while issuing promissory notes to their
clients with set rates of return.
[on camera] You were promising people how much?