Madoff was quite unusual because he was very actively involved in the upperclass Jewish philanthropic community. It's also where most of his victims came from.

Madoff was quite unusual because he was very actively involved in the upperclass Jewish philanthropic community. It's also where most of his victims came from. That's one of the reasons he was able to get away with it for so long. People assumed that he wouldn't steal from members of his own community like that. So most observers assumed he found a way to front run trades on his other funds without getting caught, and were looking for evidence of that.