The U.S. Justice Department announced Thursday that it had started distributing an additional $568 million to nearly 31,000 victims of Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme, the seventh installment in what prosecutors called the largest payment of forfeited funds in DOJ history.
The new distribution, prosecutors said, will bring overall recovery in the case to over $3.7 billion for investors who trusted Madoff to manage their money. Widely regarded as the largest fraud in U.S. history, the scheme may have taken as much as $65 billion from its victims over the course of more than 30 years.
Prosecutors said that more than half of the approximately $4 billion that will ultimately be returned through the Madoff Victim Fund was collected as part of the civil forfeiture recovery from the estate of deceased investor Jeffry Picower, a major beneficiary of the Ponzi scheme.
Another $1.7 billion came as the result of a deferred prosecution agreement that JPMorgan Chase Bank entered after being charged with violations of the federal Bank Secrecy Act, the Justice Department said.
The latest distribution was announced by the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office and Kenneth Polite Jr., the acting assistant attorney general of the Justice Department's Criminal Division.
"This distribution provides nearly 31,000 victims additional financial recovery from the egregious crimes committed by Bernard Madoff," Polite said in a statement. "The Department's continued efforts to ensure justice for victims of crime is demonstrated through the ongoing Madoff remission process and the billions given back to innocent victims worldwide."
