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Wednesday 28 July 2010

Bernie Madoff trustee to file suits against victims - Newspaper report

Irving Picard, court-appointed trustee for the victims of Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, is to take legal action against investors who benefited from the fraud, a newspaper report has claimed.

According to the Wall Street Journal, law suits will be filed against approximately 1,000 investors who have been dubbed “net winners” from the scam. Mr Picard told the news provider that the action will be taken against “the people who made money, who got more, have made money at the expense of the people who didn't”.

The trustee is expected to have filed the suits by December while he is also planning on targeting relatives of Mr Madoff and other funds which invested their money in Madoff’s business opportunities.

He recently expanded a law suit against the Fairfield Greenwich Group and a number of its affiliates for enabling Mr Madoff’s scam.

In an additional filing the trustee has demanded up to $3.6 billion in damages from the firm.

The fraud is thought to have amounted to almost $65 billion while Mr Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in jail in June 2009.