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AN IRISH INVESTMENT fund that helped disgraced Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff secure cash from European investors has agreed to pay nearly $687 million to the fraudster’s victims.
Dublin based Thema International Fund Plc’s relationship with Madoff goes back to the 1990s when it began sending its clients’ money to his bogus securities firm.
The payment represents transfers Thema received from Madoff’s company, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, between 2002 and 2008 plus over 19% of earlier withdrawals, Reuters reports.
Money recovered
The settlement was announced by the bankruptcy trustee, Irving Picard, and it brings the total amount recovered for Madoff’s former customers to around $12.7 billion.
That amount represents more than 72% of the $17.5 billion they lost when the scheme collapsed in 2008.
Picard said Thema gave Madoff vital access to cash as his Ponzi scheme lost steam, according to The Washington Post.
The fund is linked to Austrian banker Sonja Kohn and the Benbassat family of Swiss investment professionals.
Neither Kohn nor the Benbassats have been accused of criminal wrongdoing.
The settlement is the trustee’s largest since 2011 when it secured more than $1 billion from New York-based Tremont Group Holdings Inc.
Ponzi scheme
Madoff’s scheme secured investors by promising unusually high returns in a short space of time.
The 79-year-old used money from new backers to pay off earlier adopters.
Investors were told they are making large returns and encouraged not to withdraw their investments.
He was arrested as the scheme unravelled in December 2008, he later pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and was sentenced to 150 years in prison.
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If Bernie was Irish and based in Dublin he would be back in business by now.
@Niall Power: 100%. And still living in his mansion rubbing shoulders with all the other crooks.
@Nollaig Elliot: And calling his “friends” in Dail to reprimand them…
@cortisola: nope. Breffne O ‘Brien had a much smaller Ponzi scheme…and he is in jail..,
Millions and billions mixed up there
@Guill Ire: Send a Tip/ Correction button is available to you. I would suggest this is a better way of getting the article corrected.
@Guill Ire: missed 9 of his birthdays too, he’s a 79 year old
On the night of November 8th, 2016, Bernie Madoff belatedly realized the solution to all is problems – “I should have run for president!!”
Bernie Madoff got off a bit too light as many victims toke their own life’s.
@Ossi Fritsche: took not toke, dam autocorrect.
@Ossi Fritsche: including his son
“Lives” also lol
He madoff with a lot of people’s money.
Good precedent, those who were in power and accepted the odious and illicit debt which was foisted on the population acted outside their remit.
They can be made personally responsible for the debt and we, the population can renounce any responsibility for their reckless decisions!
It’s all numbers on a computer at the end of a day, you can never actually get any cash from any investments you make.
Bernie made off with the cash!
“agrees”
Gud luk
have your say