US authorities have seized a $9.4 million luxury home in Florida belonging to disgraced Wall Street financier Bernard Madoff and his wife after earlier confiscating two of their leisure boats.
There was no one living inside at the time as the federal agents moved into the two-story property at 410 North Lake Way, Palm Beach, set amid carefully manicured lawns and hedges on Florida's Intracoastal Waterway.
Madoff, a 70-year-old former Nasdaq stock market chairman, has been charged with operating the biggest investment fraud on Wall Street, cheating private investors, charities and pension funds out of an estimated $65 billion.
US Marshals swooped down on the Madoff's Florida winter getaway after seizing two recreation boats belonging to them.
The Madoff assets, which were handed over to official custodians for safe-keeping, were secured under a seizure warrant issued by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, where Madoff is in jail awaiting sentencing.
Locks were changed on more than half a dozen doors of the Palm Beach home, including the big polished wooden front door.
"It's a fully-furnished lived-in house," Golden said, speaking from the property, which is tucked behind a towering ficus hedge in the exclusive beach enclave. The backyard pool is fringed with palms and a flowering bougainvillea.
Earlier, federal agents in Davie, near Fort Lauderdale, took control of the 55-foot customized boat, called "Bull", at a local marina, while in Palm City, West Palm Beach, they seized "Little Bull", a smaller, 24-foot recreational craft.
The seizures came a day after a judge froze the assets of Madoff's two sons who worked at the Madoff firm. Assets of five executives who ran hedge fund portfolios that funnelled money into Madoff's Ponzi scheme, also were frozen.
Bernard Madoff has confessed to perpetrating the fraud, involving more than 4,800 client accounts.
It was not immediately clear what other assets belonging to Madoff or his family would be seized.
Other Madoff property listed as "subject to forfeiture" includes a 75-foot yacht, also called "Bull", docked in Juan-les-Pins, France, real estate in New York and Cap d'Antibes, France, cars, a Steinway piano, silverware, jewellery, bank funds, shares and securities.
Madoff's fraud struck hard at Jewish communities and charities across the United States that had invested in his business. The scheme bilked some of the richest families in Palm Beach, Florida.
In another development, Massachusetts' top securities regulator sued Fairfield Greenwich Group, which funnelled billions of dollars into Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme, accusing the hedge fund firm of misleading investors.
Reuters