Madoff suicide broker recruited Euro royalty

René-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet was found dead in his office on New York's Madison Avenue yesterday morning.

He is said to have been ashamed by his losses with Bernie Madoff and called a long-time client in Paris 24 hours before his death sounding upset, saying: "I have to fight for my clients and myself. It's a complete nightmare."

The champion yachtsman founded Access International Advisers, which ran a number of funds mainly aimed at wealthy European investors on the "ski chalet" circuit.

Its LUXALPHA SICAV-American Selection fund invested only with the disgraced Madoff.

Mr de La Villehuchet, a well-known figure at the New York Yacht Club, used wealthy associates such as partner Philippe Junot, a former husband of Princess Caroline of Monaco, and investor relations manager Prince Michel of Yugoslavia as "Alpine advisers" to sign up investors.

They included the Rothschild family and Liliane Bettencourt, the 86-year-old daughter of the founder of L'Oreal cosmetics empire and the world's richest woman.

Friends of Mr de La Villehuchet, who owned a home in the New York suburb Westchester County and a family chateau in Brittany, described him as "irreproachable" and said his world would have been shattered by the revelation that Madoff was a fraudster.

Guy Gurney, a British photographer living in Connecticut who was a sailing friend of Mr de La Villehuchet, said he was "very involved" with Madoff and had been "absolutely shocked" when the Wall Street fund manager had been arrested.

Mr Gurney added: "He was a very honourable man. He was extraordinarily generous. He was an aristocrat but not a snob. He was a real person. When he was sailing, he was one of the boys." He also said his friend had "sounded very subdued" in recent days.

The two were supposed to have dinner last Friday but Mr Gurney telephoned the day before to cancel. It was during the conversation that Mr de la Villehuchet revealed he had been caught by the Madoff scandal.

"Access was his whole life, and Madoff was a manager in whom he had complete trust. I lunched with him two weeks ago and he said how lucky it was that Madoff was the only manager still doing well at the moment."

Another friend of Mr de la Villehuchet said: "He had been searching day and night for a way to recover the funds of his investors... He couldn't bear the blame game that broke out among the Europeans.

"It's a farewell from someone who had nothing to be ashamed of... The truth is that everybody wanted to invest with Madoff, who was considered by all as AAA or totally safe," he said.

Mr de La Villehuchet, who was married but had no children, is also believed to have had some of his personal money with Madoff.

The 65-year-old investor had locked the door, slashed his wrists and arms with a box cutter and bled to death.

Police said he had put his feet on his desk and allowed the blood to flow into a rubbish bin under his desk to minimise the mess. Bottles of sleeping pills were found near the body but no suicide note.

Prior to the Madoff scandal he had enjoyed an impeccable career in finance. Before founding Access in 1994 he was chairman and chief executive officer of US investment banking arm of French bank Credit Lyonnais.

He founded Interfinance, a broker specialising in French, Belgian and Italian stock markets in 1983. Access said in a letter to clients on 12 December that it carried out "extensive" due diligence on the funds in which is invests money.

It said it also hires private investigators to run "extensive background checks on the fund managers it uses.

According to the website of the French newspaper La Tribune Mr de la Villehuchet had spent the past week trying "day and night to find a way to recoup his investors' money" and that he had begun legal action in the United States against US authorities.

News of the latest revelation in the Madoff saga come as the FBI has moved agents from anti-terrorism investigations in order to look into financial fraud because it poses "the greatest threat" to American.