Bernie Madoff’s victims have now recovered 94% of their losses

A US government fund to help compensate thousands of people scammed by the late Bernie Madoff in the biggest Ponzi scheme in history is making its final batch of payments.

A US government fund created to compensate thousands of people scammed by the late Bernie Madoff in history’s biggest Ponzi scheme is making its final batch of payments — and it has now made up nearly all of their losses. The Madoff Victim Fund has started distributing more than $131.4 million in its 10th and final round of payments, bringing the total amount of compensation — shared among almost 41,000 victims across 127 countries — to $4.3 billion, the US Department of Justice said in a press release on Monday. That means each victim will receive compensation covering almost 94% of their proven losses, according to the department. The department noted that this final round of payouts represented “the culmination of a decade of work identifying thousands of victims around the world and unwinding layers of complex financial transactions.” Madoff orchestrated his colossal $20 billion fraud over many years until his arrest in 2008. The scheme, which had run through his wealth management firm, unraveled during the global financial crisis. A Ponzi scheme works by paying off older investors with the cash from new investors, instead of investing the money and distributing the returns. Madoff, the former Nasdaq chairman, cheated individuals and organizations, including charities and schools, wreaking havoc on people’s lives. Most victims were relatively small-level investors, according to the department, each losing less than $500,000 in the scam.