$1 Billion in Madoff Assets Found So Far, House in France Could Be Seized Next

The court-appointed trustee charged with tracking down assets belonging to disgraced Wall Street money manager Bernard Madoff has found more than $1 billion so far as investigators turn their sights to the home Madoff owned in France.

The update on the work by the trustee, Irving Picard, was given today by prosecutors appearing before the Manhattan federal court judge who is presiding over the Madoff case. In February, Picard had said he had at that point located about $946.4 million, but he recently found $75 million in Madoff assets stashed away in Gibraltar, prosecutors said.

Investigators hope Madoff’s assets, including cash, cars, real estate, and other belongings, can be seized and sold off to either reimburse defrauded investors or pay creditors of Madoff’s financial firms.

Madoff, 70, a former chairman of NASDAQ and a respected Wall Street insider, pleaded guilty this month to running a massive Ponzi scam which netted him as much as $65 billion over nearly 20 years. He is jailed awaiting sentencing and faces up to 150 years in prison.

Working With British Officials

U.S. prosecutors also said they are working with the British-based Serious Organized Crime Agency, which specializes in prosecuting money laundering and other financial crimes in England. Madoff admitted that he moved large sums of money between the U.S.-based Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC and firms he controlled in Britain to give the appearance that he was conducting securities trading when in fact he was not.

Specifics of what work the U.S. and British officials are doing in the Madoff case were not offered, but a prosecutor said “there may be criminal implications” to the work.

Also during the hearing, prosecutors said they expect that French authorities will “grab” the home Madoff and his wife owned there as part of the ongoing fraud investigation. The Madoffs reportedly owned property in New York, Florida, and France, all of which may be seized as part of the government’s probe.

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