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Bernie is an interesting case. As part of his guilty plea, he admitted that from around 1990 onward, basically every transaction in his company was fraudulent. The actual start was probably at the beginning of his company in the '70s.
What makes that interesting is that his clients weren't just rich, but experienced. They knew how to smell out a con. He was able to keep his claims just plausible enough that they didn't notice for decades.
A lot of Ponzi schemes will claim 300% or 5000% percent returns in a year. Experienced investors know that's bullshit; maybe you can get lucky in one or two trades, but it's never sustainable. The SP500 will tend to give you returns of 8% or so in the long run (with plenty of year to year variation), and it's hard to beat that while accounting for transaction costs. Bernie was claiming 15-20%, which is good, but not crazy.
imho, they all knew it was a scam, but they all figured that they were the insiders and only the rubes were getting fleeced.