The bankruptcy trustee trying to recover assets for defrauded investors in the Bernard Madoff ‘Ponzi’ scheme has filed suit against former investor Jeffrey Picower. From a ProPublica article the suit seeks to understand how Picower was able to withdraw over $6B.

… the biggest winner in Madoff’s scheme may not have been Madoff at all, but a secretive businessman named Jeffry Picower.

Between December 1995 and December 2008, Picower and his family withdrew from their various Madoff accounts $5.1 billion more than they invested with the self-confessed swindler

This is like reading a classic mystery or spy thriller and hard to put down. An interesting point is that like Madoff, Picower, though wealthy, does not immediately appear to have assets equaling the billions of dollars now unaccounted for. Also like Madoff, Picower donated heavily in Jewish charities.

* American Friends of Herzog Hospital to help children living under fire in Sderot ($100,000)
* Foundation for Jewish Camp ($109,278)
* Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundatoin ($1,500)
* Jewish Family and Life ($33,333)
* Jewish Outreach Institute ($185,000)
* UJA –Federation of New York ($56,250)
* American Jewish World Service ($75,000)
* Jewish Television Network ($50,000)
* Limmud New York ($225,000)
* Moving Traditions ($75,000)
* Hillel ($50,000)
* Interfaith Family.com ($25,000)
* Jewish Coalition for Service ($40,000)
* Avodah ($75,000)
* Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Brooklin, Mass. for diabetes research $50,000
* Jewish Community Center in Manhattan $10,000
* Palm Beach Fellowship of Christians and Jews $5,000
* South Florida Chapter of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation $5,000
* United States Holocaust Memorial Museum $10,000
* American Friends of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art $5,000
* Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Diabetes Research $500,000

But where did the rest of the money go? While Picower got the lions share, seven other Madoff investors are under investigation.