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How much did Madoff wife know about his $50billion swindle?
Nick Goodway, City Correspondent16.12.08
THE WIFE of Bernard Madoff, the man at the centre of the $50billion Ponzi investment fraud, is coming under scrutiny from investigators as to how much she knew about his business and whether she helped him to raise money from their social network of wealthy individuals.
Ruth Madoff was regularly seen with her husband, entertaining at their three multi-million-dollar homes and the six golf clubs of which they were members.
She accompanied him to charity dinners, often among the elite Jewish fraternity in New York, and is a co-trustee of the $19million Madoff Family Foundation.
She has not been charged and her lawyer Ike Sorkin said: "We are in no position to tell the investigators what to look at."
The scale of the Madoff network is enormous, with close links to the No1 Spanish banking family, the Botins.
Emilio Botin is the architect of the massive Banco Santander, which now owns Abbey, Bradford & Bingley and Alliance & Leicester in this country and is run by his daughter Patricia.
Santander is one of the largest victims of the Madoff scam and could lose up to £2.1billion.
Geneva is also emerging as one of the most important hubs for Madoff Securities to entice new money into its investment scam.
New York investigators are keen to find out exactly how much Mr Madoff's two sons, Mark and Andrew, knew about his Ponzi scheme.
It is reported that they blew the whistle on him to the FBI after their father told them he had lost $50billion.
At the same time it has emerged that one of London's most high-profile hedge fund managers is a victim of the $50million scam.
Arpad Busson, who is engaged to actress Uma Thurman, has up to $220million exposure to Madoff through the EIM fund of hedge funds which manages about $11billion. Mr Busson runs the annual Ark Dinner which raises millions of pounds from hedge fund managers to help children who are victims of abuse, poverty, illness and disability.
This year's dinner at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich raised £25.8million, which was only slightly down on the previous year's record of £28million.
Bill Glass, partner and head of business development at EIM, founded in 1992 by Mr Busson, confirmed the exposure to Madoff's funds.
But Mr Busson is far from alone as it today emerged that Madoff and his family used a complex web of wealthy individuals across Europe to introduce new investors into his funds. Those new investors enabled him to keep paying the healthy returns he had promised older existing investors.
Last night a New York judge ordered that all the US operations of Bernard Madoff Investment Securities should be shut down and liquidated.
Madoff claimed to investigators when he was arrested that he had lost $50billion and that there was only about $300million left in what is turning out to be the biggest financial scam in history.
The list of victims encompassed Jewish charities which have lost most of their money, smaller hedge funds which have been wiped out and wealthy individuals from Hollywood to Madrid. Director Stephen Spielberg and DreamWorks chief executive Jeffrey Katzenberg have been investing in Madoff funds since 2004.
Spielberg's charitable foundation is reported to have made up to 70 per cent of its annual income from Madoff Securities while Katzenberg's friends said he had several million dollars invested.
In the UK, Hampshire local authority said it could have lost up to £8million while five Merseyside authorities may be exposed to the tune of £2million.
Reader views (5)
The family members of con artists are a mixed group. Not all are accomplices. Con artists often con their families who just like every other group don't want to admit the worst has happened to them. Nevertheless, con artists cannot operate without other people to knowingly and unknowingly support their schemes.
- Liane Leedom, CT, USA
So how does someone lose 50 billion?, that is pretty impressive. So wheres the list of people who benefited 10 fold and why arent they being asked to give the money back?. The fact only one person knew what was going on is staggering. This is prob the first of many corrupt schemes about to crash and burn.
- Dc, London
It would be extremely naive to presume that Madoff's two sons knew nothing of the clandestine operations carried out by their father. He is famously protective of the boys and coached them to "turn him in" and "publicly spurn him" after allegedly informing them of his criminal activity. This was to spare them jail time and clever man that he is was hoping to bring attention solely to himself and be the only one to fall. The heat was on they had been discovered and he would take the rap. Nothing else makes sense. Further inquiries will reveal that others will follow his sorry march to prison. Welcome to the post greed era !
- Karen Webster, Vancouver, British Columbia
Are these good people going to repay the 'dividends' that never really existed? Dishonesty obviously upsets them ,so why not?
- Mdj, Leyton, e10 london
They all benefited and lived in luxury off those stolen proceeds and living the luxury high life and now feign innocence.
- Peter Noterfed, Paris, France
