Investor Bernard Madoff appears in Manhattan federal court on March 10, 2009 in New York City. Mr. Madoff appeared at a hearing regarding discrepancies in his legal representative status in an alleged multibillion-dollar fraud.
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The 10th and final distribution from a fund for victims of the late Ponzi scheme king Bernie Madoff began Monday. Ministry of Justice Said.
The final disbursement amounted to more than $131 million, which was sent to more than 23,000 victims around the world. Once completed, the fund will distribute more than $4.3 billion to more than 40,000 victims in about 130 countries, according to the Department of Justice.
According to the bureau, this figure represents nearly 94% of the total estimated losses due to fraud.
The final payment is Madoff Victims Fund The announcement was made approximately 16 years after Madoff’s fraud was discovered.
“Today’s distribution represents an unprecedented conclusion to compensation for victims of civil forfeiture actions related to the Madoff scheme,” said James Dennehy, Deputy Director in Charge of the FBI’s New York Field Office.
“The victims implicitly trusted Madoff with their investments, but ultimately lost large sums of money to his selfish schemes,” Dennehy said.
Mr. Madoff, who was head of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities in New York, pleaded guilty in March 2009 to 11 felonies related to what federal prosecutors said was the world’s largest pyramid scheme.
Mr. Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison for a 40-year fraud scheme in which he repaid clients with funds collected from other clients rather than with the profits from his alleged investment transactions.
He died at age 82 in a federal prison facility in North Carolina in April 2021, nearly a year after his request for compassionate release was denied due to end-stage kidney disease.
When Madoff’s fraud first became public, prosecutors estimated total losses at $65 billion. However, that estimate When authorities deducted the fictitious investment profits and interest that Madoff’s clients had been tricked into believing existed, stock prices plummeted.
The largest portion of the fund for Madoff victims, about $2.2 billion, came from a civil forfeiture recovery from the estate of now-deceased Madoff investor Jeffrey Picower, the Justice Department said. .
Another $1.7 billion JP Morgan Chase as part of Agreement to postpone prosecution The Justice Department previously said JPMorgan Chase and its predecessor institutions served as the primary banks operating Mr. Madoff’s scheme.
The remainder of the victims’ fund came from “civil forfeiture actions against investor Carl Shapiro and his family, and civil and criminal forfeiture actions against Bernard L. Madoff, Peter B. Madoff, and their co-conspirators.” The Department of Justice announced on Monday.
