A fund created by the U.S. government to aid the victims of the late fraudster Bernard Madoff has begun its final round of payments, according to a statement from the Department of Justice (DoJ).
The payments, made by the Madoff Victim Fund (MVF), amount to $131.4 million (£104.6 million), bringing the total compensation to 40,930 claimants to $4.3 billion.
Madoff, a Wall Street financier who gained notoriety after admitting to orchestrating one of the largest frauds in U.S. financial history, died in prison in 2021.
He had been serving a 150-year sentence after pleading guilty in 2009 to running a Ponzi scheme, which paid returns to investors from new clients' money instead of actual profits.
“The MVF distribution compensates one of the most horrendous financial crimes ever committed,” said Richard Breeden, who oversees the MVF.
Mr. Breeden is a former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
“We’ve helped tens of thousands of victims achieve the largest compensation we could,” he added.
Madoff's victims included wealthy individuals, as well as less affluent people and companies — both large and small — along with schools, charities, and pension funds.
According to the MVF, by the time its mission concludes in 2025, the fund will have reimbursed nearly 94% of the proven losses suffered by the victims.
An additional $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 Wall Street’s largest market makers, matching buyers and sellers of stocks, and Madoff served as the chairman of the Nasdaq stock exchange platform.
For many years, the SEC had investigated the company eight times due to its unusually high profits.
However, it was the global recession that led to the firm’s closure, as Madoff’s investors, impacted by the economic downturn, sought to withdraw around $7 billion, and he could not find the funds to cover it.
Among the swindled were actor Kevin Bacon, Hall of Fame baseball player Sandy Koufax, and the charitable foundation of director Steven Spielberg, Wunderkinder.
UK banks were also among those who lost money. HSBC Holdings reported its exposure at about $1 billion. Other corporate victims included the Royal Bank of Scotland, Man Group, and Japan’s Nomura Holdings.