Bernie Madoff Victims Get Final Payout, Bringing Total Compensation to $4.3 Billion

Total recoveries from the Ponzi scheme will reach nearly 94 percent of losses across a decade-long recovery effort.

Former Wall Street financier Bernard Madoff leaves U.S. Federal Court in New York after a hearing on March 10, 2009. TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images

People scammed out of their money by Ponzi scheme mastermind Bernie Madoff are set to receive a final payout of $131.4 million from a recovery fund run by the Justice Department, which said that the last compensation tranche brings the total recoveries to over $4.3 billion, or nearly 94 percent of the victims’ fraud losses.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Dec. 30 that it had begun its 10th and final distribution of compensation payments to more than 23,000 victims of Madoff’s securities fraud scheme.