Jailed swindler Bernie Madoff said it was "amazing" that he didn't get caught sooner in his multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme, and that everything the SEC did to investigate him prior to 2006 was a waste of time, according to a jailhouse interview he gave to SEC Inspector General H. David Kotz.
Madoff also told Kotz that SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro was a "dear friend," although she "probably thinks, 'I wish I never knew this guy.'"
Madoff gave the interview to Kotz in June while awaiting sentencing for one of the largest financial frauds in history. At the time, Madoff was being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York. He agreed to speak to Kotz, who was investigating the SEC's decades-long failure to uncover the scheme. The SEC released notes of the interview along with hundreds of other exhibits in the investigation following a request by CNBC under the Freedom of Information Act.