Former financier Bernard Madoff (C) leaves federal court following a hearing in New York, N.Y., in 2009. On Monday, the Justice Department reported that the fund designed to aid victims of the investment scam perpetrated by Madoff started its final round of payment reimbursements. File Photo by Peter Foley/EPA-EFE
Dec. 30 (UPI) — The fund designed to aid victims of the investment scam perpetrated by Bernie Madoff started its final round of payment reimbursements, the U.S. Justice Department announced.
The 10th and final round will represent more than $131 million to be paid out to more than 23,000 victims of the Bernard L. Madoff fraud scheme in funds released by the federal government, according to a release.
“This office has never stopped at pursuing justice for victims of history’s largest Ponzi scheme,” Acting U.S. Attorney Edward Y. Kim for New York’s Southern District, said Monday.
Most victims were small investors who lost less than $500,000, according to officials.
So far, 40,000 victims will have recovered nearly 94% of their losses due to fraud.
Madoff victimized Hollywood stars and score of others in one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history. He pleaded guilty in 2019 to 11 federal felonies after admitting he turned his wealth management business that he founded in 1960 into a Ponzi scheme that benefited his family and inner circle.
“The unprecedented scope and complexity of the Madoff remission process shows the power of forfeiture to recover assets and to compensate victims,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brent Wible, head of DOJ’s criminal division.
Madoff, a former Nasdaq chairman, was 12 years into a 150-year prison sentence when he died at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, N.C., in 2021 at age 82.
The Madoff Victim Fund through its 10 distributions will have paid more than $4 billion in forfeited funds to 40,930 victims in 127 countries around the world for losses suffered from the collapse of BLMIS.
It was called an “unprecedented conclusion” to victim compensation via civil forfeiture.
“These victims implicitly trusted Madoff with their investments only to ultimately lose significant monies to his selfish plan,” Assistant Director in Charge James E. Dennehy of the FBI’s New York Field Office, added on Monday.