Lower Austria ‘invested 40 mn in disgraced Madoff fund’
Lower Austria has invested 40 million Euros in disgraced American Bernard Madoffs Alpha Prime fund, says a report in todays (Thurs) Der Standard newspaper.Der Standard said that Fibeg, the provincial investment office, had invested the money with Madoff on 30 June 2008.Madoff, who had been running a giant Ponzi scheme for years, went belly up in December 2008 and those who had invested with him lost everything. He confessed to having defrauded 4,800 investors of around 50 billion US dollars.Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison on 29 June 2009. Two computer programmers who helped him run the Ponzi scheme were arrested on 13 November 2009. They have since been released on bail pending trial.The newspaper added that former Vienna stock exchange chief Stefan Zapotocky had been on the board of the Alpha Prime fund and that he had also been one of Lower Austrias investment advisors.