At the height of the Great Recession, Bernie Madoff confessed to running the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, a $65 billion fraud that left thousands of victims financially shattered. Madoff's crimes went undetected for years, raising doubts about the government's ability to protect investors. CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin looks back at how Madoff made it to the pinnacle of the financial world, the unraveling of his scheme, and the fallout for his victims, Wall Street institutions and his family.