Saturday, 7th November 2009

 

3 July 2009 - Press Briefing

Austrian private banker under scanner over alleged Madoff kickbacks

US, UK and Austrian prosecutors are probing Sonja Kohn, a former Austrian fund manager, they believe was paid over $40m (€29m) in bribes to steer billions of dollars of investments towards Bernard Madoff, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Prosecutors from all three inquiries think Madoff paid kickbacks to Kohn while she was chairwoman of Bank Medici via separate companies she controlled, as per affidavits detailing the probes and hundreds of documents collected by Austrian prosecutors.

In return for the kickbacks, Kohn allegedly converted three Bank Medici funds into "feeder” vehicles that channelised $3.5bn of European investors’ money towards Madoff, the WSJ report said.

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