Pointing out examples of people breaking the law, getting caught, and going to jail for it is not a good argument against having the law in place.

I mean, do you point at an example of someone committing murder, getting arrested, and going to jail for life as a reason that we shouldn't have laws against murder, since clearly people still murder anyway?

Madoff is serving a life sentence in prison and forfeited billions. He didn't get off scot-free in any way.

Precisely. The argument is that they are less common due to regulation (not that they cease to exist entirely).

This example proves tdb's point, not yours. The SEC did its job, which was sending Madoff to jail. Its job was not to make everyone's money come back and redistribute it.

Actually - the SEC didn't do its job at all:https://www.reuters.com/article/us-madoff-sec/victims-of-mad...