It’s been a year since Bernie Madoff was convicted of swindling investors out of billions. But so far, only $1.5 billion has been recovered. The Daily Beast goes in search of the rest:
As for the convicted swindler’s real-life bankruptcy trustee, Irving Picard, his team is digging around the Caribbean and elsewhere, although he is loath to talk about his investigation. Madoff victims have filed thousands of claims to recover their missing billions, but almost a year into his 150-year sentence, the disgraced financier is not talking—and the U.S. Attorney’s Office has failed to press charges against any of his family members.
Picard told The Daily Beast that so far he has recovered about $1.5 billion from Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.He dismissed the first anniversary of Madoff’s plea as meaningless, saying: “A lot of these things always take time. I never put a time frame on anything. It is the press that does.”Picard added: “Conversations and negotiations are ongoing. I am not publicly disclosing any kind of settlement negotiations.”Asked if he’s satisfied that Madoff told him everything, Picard hesitated. “You’re assuming we’re finished with Bernie Madoff,” he said. “You don’t know whether we started or are finished… We are doing what we have to do and we are not making it public for a lot of reasons.”
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