Financier Bernard Madoff leaves Manhattan federal court March 10, 2009 in New York City. Madoff attended a hearing on the disputed status of his legal representation in his multi-billion dollar fraud allegations.
Chris Hondros | Getty Images
The 10th and final release from the late victims' fund Ponzi king's scheme Bernie Madoff began Monday, the Department of Justice said.
The final amount, of more than $131 million, is being sent to more than 23,000 victims worldwide. When complete, more than $4.3 billion will be distributed by the fund to more than 40,000 victims in nearly 130 countries, the DOJ said.
That account is nearly 94% of the total estimated loss from the scam, the department said.
The last money is at the Madoff Victims Fund it was announced about 16 years after Madoff's fraud came to light.
“Today's release represents an unprecedented decision on compensation for victims of civil forfeiture actions related to the Madoff scheme,” said FBI New York Field Office Assistant Director James Dennehy .
“These victims surely trusted Madoff with their investments only to lose huge amounts of money to his selfish scheme,” Dennehy said.
Madoff, the former head of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities in New York, pleaded guilty in March 2009 to 11 felonies in connection with what federal prosecutors said was the world's largest Ponzi scheme. .
Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison for the fraud, which spanned four decades and made him pay off customers with money taken from other customers, not with investment trading profits as alleged e.
he is died in April 2021, at the age of 82, at a federal prison facility in North Carolina, nearly a year after he was denied a request for compassionate release due to terminal kidney disease.
The largest portion of the funds for Madoff's victims, approximately $2.2 billion, came from the civil forfeiture recovery from the estate of Jeffry Picower, a Madoff investor who is now dead, the DOJ said.
Another $1.7 billion came from JPMorgan Chase as part of a Prosecution agreement cancelled by the DOJ in January 2014. JPMorgan Chase and its predecessor institutions served as the primary bank through which Madoff carried out his scheme, the DOJ previously said.
The rest of the victims' assets came from “a civil forfeiture action against investor Carl Shapiro and his family and from civil and criminal forfeiture actions against Bernard L. Madoff, Peter B. Madoff, and their co-conspirators, ” the DOJ said Monday. .
