Former financer Bernie Madoff, sentenced to 150 years for perpetrating the biggest pyramid scam in Wall Street history, died in a U.S. federal prison at age 82.
The U.S. Bureau of Federal Prisons announced the death of Madoff, who suffered from chronic kidney failure and several other base diseases.
Madoff, who in 2009 pleaded guilty to having ripped off $50 billion, had last year applied to get out of jail for his terminal illness, but his request had been rejected.
Among the thousands of victims of Madoff scams are both simple citizens and businesses, pension funds, hedge funds and charities.
Among them are celebrities Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick and John Malkovich, and an NGO associated with film director Steven Spielberg.
The owners of the New York Mets baseball team, one of the longest-advised clients of Madoff, struggled for years to have a competitive team due to the losses they suffered.
Madoff orchestrated the largest Ponzi scheme in history and some of his victims lost everything. Many came from the Jewish community of the United States, where Madoff was a major philanthropist.
His crimes were revealed by the authorities in 2008 by his two sons, who did not participate in the scams.
