There's nothing journalists like doing less than praising other journalists. But hats off to Erin E. Arvedlund, an American business journalist who warned about Bernie Madoff's apparently peerless investment returns back in 2001, in an article in Barron's, the weekly US business publication.

News of Madoff's alleged $50bn pyramid scheme came as a shock to most of Wall Street and the rest of the world but not, it seems, to Ms Arvelund.

In an article headlined "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", she raised question marks about how he had been able to consistently deliver returns of 15pc or more per annum. A number of experts in options trading told her that it was very hard to understand how he was generating that level of returns with the investment style he was supposed to be using.

Euphemistically, she wrote "some on Wall Street remain skeptical about how Madoff achieves such stunning double-digit returns using options alone".

She speaks about how she got the story in an interview with Portfolio.com here. Hat-tip to Roy Greenslade.