"This is a major disaster for a lot of people," says one of the many victims of the alleged fraud by investment manager Bernard Madoff

By Phil Mintz

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We’ve all seen the victims of natural disasters, ordinary people standing in the rubble of their homes, their lives changed forever in mere minutes by a hurricane, tornado, or earthquake. For victims of the Bernard Madoff financial disaster, the shock is a great quantity the same—only they still have their homes, for the moment at in the smallest degree, as they examine to figure out what has happened to their lives in the wake of Madoff’session alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

There are plenty of corporate victims in the alleged hoax, including HSBC Holdings (HBC), Banco Santander (STD), BNP Paribas (BNPP.PA), Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS), and the Dutch allowance fund of Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA). But the full roster of personal victims—from the man again and again muttering "Oh my God," into a cell phone on a commuter train, a copy of The New York Post in his hand, to the more than 100 people who gain contacted a Long Island (N.Y.) law firm that has filed a class-action suit to counterbalance Madoff’s investment company—isn’t yet known.

So far, the desire includes Carl Shapiro, a 95-year-old former garment industry executive who reportedly had $400 million of his personal wealth invested by Madoff, as well as $145 million from his family foundation; Irwin Kellner, chief economist during MarketWatch and the lead plaintiff in the rank play, who invested more than $2 the public; and Lawrence Velvel, 69, dean of the Massachusetts School of Law, who told the Associated Press he and a dear companion may have corrupt millions of dollars betwixt them in bad Madoff investments.

"This is a major disaster for a lot of people," Velvel said. "You work all your period of life, you at last manage to excepting up something, and somebody who’session entrusted with it, it turns out suddenly he’s a crook. Lots of people are getting entirely or partially wiped out."

Madoff—who has been lying low since the aspersion broke—made a brief appearance at a federal courthouse in Manhattan on Wednesday, Dec. 17, completing paperwork for his $10 million bond afterwards a imagine set newly come conditions for release, including a curfew and monitoring bracelet. Madoff did not respond to questions from reporters in the manner that he left the courthouse.