NEW YORK: Two years after the implosion of the largest Ponzi scheme in US history, the trustee in charge of Bernard Madoff's estate is looking to claw back $50 billion for defrauded investors. Court-appointed trustee Irving Picard won his greatest victory yet Friday when the estate of an investor who made a fortune off the fraud agreed to surrender $7.2 billion, quadrupling the size of the trustee's fund. Federal prosecutors called the settlement “the largest forfeiture recovery in US history” and said the money would be distributed to victims of the 72-year-old jailed fraudster in the coming year. “The importance of this settlement cannot be overstated, as it shows significant progress in our efforts to assemble the largest customer fund possible,” Picard said in a statement. But most of those cheated by the scheme will have to wait much longer, as a flurry of recovery suits filed earlier this month makes its way through the courts. Madoff, now serving a 150-year prison sentence, was arrested in December 2008 and pleaded guilty in a Manhattan federal court to running a Ponzi scheme that Picard estimates lost some $20 billion in invested principal. The total fraud, once the lost potential interest on the funds is calculated in, has been estimated at $50 billion, and suits have poured in from more than 16,000 investors from around the world who claim to have been defrauded by Madoff. The victims ranged from major banks, savvy financial players and Hollywood moguls to charities and individual investors. – Agence France
