For the first time, we’re hearing Bernard Madoff in his own words explain how he dodged government investigators for decades, as he bilked investors out of millions. The revealing words come via a secretly recorded phone conversation released by the Massachusetts Secretary of State.

In the recording between Madoff and a potential witness in 2005, the Ponzi scheme king shows nothing, but disdain for the Securities and Exchange Commission. It’s obvious from his first words that the man now serving 150 years in prison knew he was breaking the law.

“First of all, this conversation never happened, OK?” Madoff tells the witness as soon as the call starts.

The other people on the phone call are from Fairfield Greenwich Advisors, formerly of an office in midtown Manhattan, which settled an $8 million suit by Massachusetts to repay its investors. On their Web site, they deny being one of Madoff’s feeder funds, but on the phone call, Madoff coaches them on how to dodge questions by the SEC.

“The less that you know about how we do so on and so forth the better you are,” Madoff says.

Madoff tells his pupils that no one in his office sees how he trades.

“I’m the only one that can make the decision in our organization as to when to get in or out of the market,” he says. “I’m the only one that pulls the trigger.”

The financier was alone in his office that December day in 2005, answering the phone himself.

“Just a sec, I’m the only one here,” he says.

“Hi, I’m sorry, if I get any more solicitations for charity I’m going to kill myself,” he jokes upon his return.

But he didn’t. Instead, he spent millions of investors’ dollars on a lavish penthouse apartment and other properties and toys, while scoffing at the SEC.

“The Commission has no idea what the heck is going on, and they always think the worst, which is what they’re supposed to do,” he says. “You don’t have to be too brilliant with these guys.”

The convicted swindler jokes that SEC investigators spend five years with the agency, then go to work on Wall Street.

Former U.S. Attorney Zachary Carter, now with Dorsey & Whitney LLP, says the watchdog agency was overmatched.

“It’s a lack of sophistication, and a lack of knowledge. A lack of expertise,” says Carter. “So it may suggest that in terms of recruiting and engaging and retaining staff, they need people who are better prepared to deal with the Madoffs of the world.”

Fairfield Greenwich denies the call was to help them evade the SEC, and says they answered every question honestly.

(Source: WCBSTV)