Victims of Bernard Madoff's $17.5 billion fraud are set to receive a fresh round of payments totaling about $322 million — the latest distribution since the biggest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history fell apart six years ago.
The proposed payout will boost the sum returned to victims to about $7.2 billion, or almost 49 percent of their lost principal, Irving Picard, the trustee unwinding Madoff's defunct company, said Monday in a statement.
Picard has raised much of the cash with lawsuits against former Madoff customers who profited from the fraud by taking more out from their accounts than they put in. The trustee last month reached $10 billion in recoveries, several billion of which is locked up in drawn-out litigation with investors seeking larger payouts.