Court tracks down $1B of Madoff assets

A lawyer for the court-appointed trustee for locating Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff's assets says over $1 billion have been found.

Around $75 million of the Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities' assets have been found in Gibraltar, allowing the court to return more than $1 billion to the swindler's defrauded customers, a lawyer for trustee Irving Picard said on Monday. David Sheehan also said that French authorities may seize Bernard Madoff's $1 million seaside home in the south of France. The swindler and his wife owned four properties, three of them in the US. Madoff, once a NASDAQ stock market chairman, confessed to being the Wall Street's all-time biggest fraudster on March 12 by pleading guilty to 11 criminal charges, including money laundering.

The previously respected financial adviser, who conned investors out of a record $65 billion over the past 20 years, was jailed in June pending sentencing. He acknowledged that he had illegally moved hundreds of millions back and forth between Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC in New York and his international firm in London. US prosecutors are currently cooperating with a British agency that investigates organized crime and money laundering to unravel more of Madoff's secrets. Assistant US Attorney Barbara Ward made reference to the British-based Serious Organized Crime Agency, while arguing that a court-appointed trustee should not have power of attorney over the stock of Madoff's London firm. "There may be criminal implications," the prosecutor said. Sheehan objected, however, by pointing out that the trustee needs the power of attorney to enter foreign jurisdictions 'at a moments notice' to recover as much as possible for the fraud victims. The judge did not immediately rule on the issue.