#Madoff trustee recoups $687 million in biggest settlement since 2011

#Madoff trustee recoups $687 million in biggest settlement since 2011 http://reut.rs/2xPABiQ

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The trustee recovering money for Bernard Madoff’s victims on Wednesday announced his biggest settlement in six years, recouping $687 million from an Irish fund that began sending client money to the imprisoned Ponzi schemer in the 1990s.

Thema International Fund Plc’s payment would boost the recovery by the trustee Irving Picard to about $12.7 billion, or more than 72 percent of the $17.5 billion in principal he has said Madoff’s customers lost.

The payment represents transfers that Dublin-based Thema received from Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC in the six years before Madoff’s fraud was uncovered in December 2008, plus 19.26 percent of earlier withdrawals.