U.S. Justice Department Hands $4,300,000,000 To 40,930 Victims of ‘History’s Largest Ponzi Scheme’

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) says it has nearly recovered all the losses suffered by tens of thousands of investors in the largest Ponzi scheme in history.

In a press release, the DOJ says that throughout the course of a decade, it has disbursed more than $4.3 billion to 40,930 victims of a fraud scheme led by Bernard L. Madoff.

Madoff is known for running a Ponzi scheme for about 17 years that defrauded investors from 127 countries out of approximately $65 billion. The perpetrator convinced people to invest in his firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, by promising decent returns while maintaining a trustworthy persona.

The scheme collapsed at the height of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) when investors panicked and withdrew their funds en masse only to find out that their money was being used to pay other investors.

In June 2009, Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison for “running the largest fraudulent scheme in history.” He died in a prison hospital in April of 2021 at 82 years old.

The DOJ says it recovered about $2.6 billion through several civil forfeiture actions against Madoff, his brother Peter B. Madoff, his co-conspirators and his clients who benefitted from the scheme including investors Carl Shapiro and Jeffry Picower. The agency also collected $1.7 billion after banking titan JPMorgan Chase settled accusations that the firm failed “to carry out its legal obligations” while serving as Madoff’s primary bank.

Says Acting U.S. Attorney Edward Y. Kim for the Southern District of New York,

“This office has never stopped at pursuing justice for victims of history’s largest Ponzi scheme… We have succeeded in compensating 40,930 victims with close to 94% of their losses. As this extraordinary effort demonstrates, this office and MLARS (Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section) are committed to protecting and assisting victims of crime, no matter how long it takes and no matter how complicated the endeavor.”

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