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| Bernie Madoff pictures in 2009 |
Financier Bernie Madoff, who was sentenced to 150 years in jail after pleading guilty to organising the world's biggest investing scam, has died in prison aged 82.
Madoff died at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina from natural causes, the Associated Press reported.
His death comes just over a year after he asked a US judge for early release, saying he was suffering from terminal kidney failure and other health problems and had 18 months to live.
The request, which was rejected, came after he served 10 years for defrauding some of the world's richest investors of about $19bn (£13.7bn).
Madoff had been a favourite among investors after building a reputation as a star stock-picker who delivered steady returns.
However after the 2008 financial crisis, when clients began asking for their money back, it was revealed that he had been using inflows to pay "profits" to clients.
A sizable proportion of his victims were middle-class workers left struggling to pay bills due to the “cash in, cash out” fraud.
Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 counts of fraud and money laundering in March 2009 after three months under house arrest and was sentenced to 150 years in jail.
The fraud is the largest "Ponzi" scheme, where money is taken from new clients to repay earlier investors.
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| Bernard Madoff exits Manhattan federal court, Tuesday, March 10, 2009, in New York. Madoff, the financier who pleaded guilty to orchestrating the largest Ponzi scheme in history, died early Wednesday, April 14, 2021, in a federal prison, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. |
When Madoff became a victim of the financial crisis returns diminished as there were fewer newer investors and others began to withdraw en masse, pulling more cash than he could pay out.
Madoff, whose victims included celebrities such as Steven Spielberg and John Malkovich, started his firm in his twenties with $5,000 saved from working as a lifesaver and a sprinkler installer.
He later bought a $21m home in Palm Beach, a 55ft yacht, a $7m apartment in New York and houses in the Hamptons and France.
A trustee appointed to recover money for Madoff’s victims said they have been repaid more than $13bn.
