Nearly 94% of Ponzi scheme losses recovered through last Madoff victim fund payout, DOJ declares.

• The Department of Justice announced that the final distribution from the fund for victims of Bernie Madoff began on Monday.
• The DOJ announced that after the final payment is made, over $4.3 billion will have been given to more than 40,000 victims in nearly 130 countries.
• In 2021, Madoff passed away in prison while serving a 150-year sentence for what federal prosecutors described as the largest Ponzi scheme in history.

The final distribution from the fund for victims of Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme began on Monday, according to the Department of Justice.

The DOJ announced that the last disbursement of over $131 million will be sent to more than 23,000 victims worldwide. Once completed, the fund will have distributed over $4.3 billion to more than 40,000 victims in nearly 130 countries.

Nearly 94% of the estimated total losses from the scam have been tallied, the department announced.

The Madoff Victim Fund made its final payment 16 years after the discovery of Madoff's fraud.

The Madoff scheme's civil forfeiture actions have resulted in an unprecedented conclusion of victim compensation, as stated by James Dennehy, FBI New York Field Office assistant director in charge.

Dennehy stated that the victims unknowingly relied on Madoff for their investments, only to suffer substantial losses due to his self-centered scheme.

In March 2009, Bernard L. Madoff, the head of Madoff Investment Securities in New York, pleaded guilty to 11 felonies related to what federal prosecutors described as the largest Ponzi scheme in history.

Madoff was convicted of fraud and received a 150-year prison sentence for a scheme that lasted four decades and involved him using money from new customers to pay off existing ones, rather than using investment trading gains as he claimed.

In April 2021, at age 82, he passed away at a federal prison facility in North Carolina, just over a year after his request for compassionate release due to a terminal kidney disease was denied.

The estimate of the total loss from Madoff's fraud dropped significantly once the authorities subtracted the phantom investment gains and interest that customers believed existed.

The largest portion of the fund for Madoff's victims, approximately $2.2 billion, was obtained through a civil forfeiture recovery from the estate of Jeffry Picower, a deceased Madoff investor, according to the DOJ.

In January 2014, JPMorgan Chase paid $1.7 billion as part of a deferred prosecution agreement with the DOJ, as it had been the primary bank for Madoff's scheme.

The remaining victims fund was obtained through a civil forfeiture action against Carl Shapiro and his family, as well as civil and criminal forfeiture actions against Bernard L. Madoff, Peter B. Madoff, and their accomplices, the DOJ announced Monday.