Madoff trustee seeks $ 2 billion from UBS

NEW YORK: The trustee charged with recapturing assets for victims of Wall Street scammer Bernard Madoff said today he had filed suit against Swiss bank UBS, seeking $ two billion for its part in the massive fraud.

"Madoff did not act alone in perpetrating the largest financial fraud in history," government-appointed trustee Irving Picard said in his filing in US bankruptcy court in New York.

Madoff, who touted himself as one of New York's most successful money managers, was arrested in early December 2008 for running a Ponzi scheme, which he said totalled $ 65 billion.

He was sentenced in June 2009 to 150 years in prison. UBS and its affiliates, "enabled Madoff's Ponzi scheme through numerous international feeder funds," alleged Picard.

He claims the companies were liable for at least $ two billion of Madoff's epic fraud.

Notably named in the lawsuit are late French financier Thierry de la Villehuchet, who killed himself some two years ago at the time of Madoff's arrest, and his associates at AIA, one of the groups known to have encouraged investors to trust Madoff with their money.

For years Madoff took from rich investors while pretending to manage money at the phony investment firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities (BLMIS).