A fund created by the US government to help victims of the late fraudster Bernard Madoff has begun its latest round of payments, according to a statement from the Department of Justice (DoJ).
The payments made by the Madoff Victims’ Fund (MVF) are worth $131.4m (£104.6m) and will bring the total paid back to 40,930 claimants to $4.3bn.
Madoff, the Wall Street financier disgraced after admitting to one of the biggest frauds in US financial history, died in prison in 2021.
He served a A sentence of 150 years after he pleaded guilty in 2009 to running a so-called Ponzi scheme, which paid investors with money from new clients rather than actual profits.
“MVF’s distribution compensated for one of the most monstrous financial crimes ever committed,” said Richard C Breeden, who heads MVF.
Mr. Breeden is a former chairman of the US financial regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
“We brought tens of thousands of victims to the greatest recovery we could achieve,” he added.
Madoff’s victims were a mix of wealthy individuals, less wealthy people and businesses – large and small – as well as schools, charities and pension funds.
MFV estimates that it will have recovered nearly 94% of proven casualty losses when it ends its mission in 2025.
Another $14.7 billion was returned to Madoff’s clients through bankruptcy proceedings.
Madoff’s investment firm collapsed during the 2008 financial crisis.
Founded in 1960, Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities became one of the largest market makers on Wall Street – matching buyers and sellers of stocks – and Madoff served as chairman of the Nasdaq stock trading platform.
Over the years, the company has been investigated by the SEC eight times for its exceptional returns.
But it was the global recession that fueled the company’s demise as Madoff’s crisis-hit investors tried to withdraw about $7 billion and he couldn’t find the money to cover it.
The list of scammers included actor Kevin Bacon, Hall of Fame baseball player Sandy Koufax and director Steven Spielberg’s Wunderkinder charity.
British banks were also among those who lost money, with HSBC Holdings saying it was exposed to about $1 billion. Other corporate victims were Royal Bank of Scotland and Man Group and Japan’s Nomura Holdings.
