Money stolen by Bernie Madoff is still being found

Almost a decade after the Ponzi scheme collapsed, trustees are still returning money to the victims

When bankruptcy trustees were appointed over a hectic weekend late in 2008, there seemed no end to the losses caused by the collapse of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. Cash in the bank was no more than $150m. But the losses have been less, and the assets available for compensation greater, than had been feared.

On February 22nd Irving Picard, the bankruptcy trustee overseeing the liquidation of Mr Madoff’s firm, announced that a fund set up to reimburse customers would make its ninth distribution, of $621m, bringing the total handed out so far to $11.4bn. Another $1.8bn in held in reserve for contested claims. This is on top of a separate distribution of $723m last November from a separate fund run by the Department of Justice. Another $3bn remains to be distributed in that fund and the bankruptcy trustees hold out hope that substantially more will be recovered and returned. read more »

Self-Proclaimed Bitcoin Inventor Accused of Swindling $5 Billion of Cryptocurrency

Craig Wright, the self-proclaimed inventor of bitcoin, is accused of swindling more than $5 billion worth of the cryptocurrency and other assets from the estate of a computer-security expert.

Wright, who claimed in 2016 that he created the computer-based currency under the pseudonym Satoshi ‎Nakamoto, allegedly schemed to use phony contracts and signatures to lay claim to bitcoins mined by colleague Dave Kleiman, another cryptocurrency adherent, who died in 2013, according to a lawsuit filed by Kleiman’s brother.

Kleiman’s family contends they own the rights to more than 1 million Bitcoins and blockchain technologies Kleiman mined and developed during his lifetime and that the assets’ value exceeds $5 billion, according to the Feb. 14 filing in federal court in West Palm Beach, Florida. read more »

Investigators Eye Possible $100 Million Construction Fraud

New York State Police officers and investigators from the Manhattan district attorney swept into Bloomberg L.P., the financial news and information company, on Lexington Avenue in October. Armed with search warrants and grand jury subpoenas, they demanded access to the offices of two senior executives, apparently as part of an investigation into bribery, bid-rigging and kickbacks in the interior construction industry.

That same day, Oct. 12, investigators raided the downtown offices of Turner Construction, a large general contractor that oversees work on Bloomberg offices in New York, seeking records, emails and computers belonging to two executives.

A week later, three executives at a Queens interior construction company were fired over their alleged connection to the investigation. And several weeks ago, investigators raided the offices of an electrical contractor that has worked on Bloomberg projects. read more »

Doctor tied to Insys opioid kickback probe gets prison term

A Michigan doctor linked to a federal investigation into allegations that Insys Therapeutics Inc paid kickbacks to medical practitioners to prescribe its flagship opioid product was sentenced on Monday to 32 months in prison. read more »