A fund set up by the US government to compensate victims of late fraudster Bernard Madoff has begun the final phase of payments, according to a statement from the Department of Justice (DoJ).
The payments made by the Madoff Victim Fund (MVF) are worth $131.4m (£104.6m) and are set to bring the total to 40,930 claimants to $4.3bn.
Madoff, a Wall Street financier, was discredited after admitting to the largest fraud in American financial history. Died in prison in 2021..
He was serving. 150 years sentence After pleading guilty in 2009 to running a so-called Ponzi scheme, which paid investors money from new clients instead of actual profits; of
“MVF’s divestment accomplishes one of the largest financial crimes of all time,” said Richard C. Braden, who runs MVF.
Mr. Braden is the former chairman of the US financial regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
“We brought tens of thousands of victims to the biggest recovery we could achieve,” he added.
Madoff’s victims were a mix of wealthy individuals, less wealthy people and companies – both large and small – as well as schools, charities and pension funds.
The MFV estimates that when it completes its mission in 2025, it will have covered about 94 percent of proven victim losses.
Another $14.7 billion has been returned to Madoff’s customers through bankruptcy proceedings.
Madoff’s investment firm collapsed during the 2008 financial crisis.
Founded in 1960, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities became one of Wall Street’s largest market makers — matching buyers and sellers of stocks — and Madoff became chairman of the Nasdaq stock trading platform. Serve as
Over the years, the firm was investigated by the SEC eight times because of its extraordinary profits.
But it was the global recession that led to the firm’s demise as beleaguered Madoff investors tried to withdraw nearly $7 billion and couldn’t find the money to cover it.
The list of fraudsters includes actor Kevin Bacon, Hall of Fame baseball player Sandy Koufax and film director Steven Spielberg’s charity foundation Wunderkinder.
UK banks were also among those who lost money, with HSBC Holdings saying it had about $1 billion in exposure. Other corporate victims included Royal Bank of Scotland and Maine Group and Japan’s Nomura Holdings.