Bernard Madoff used high-profile recruiters to target royalty and wealthy Europeans including Britain's Prince Charles, whistleblower Harry Markopolos said, Bloomberg reported.
Prince Michael of Yugoslavia was an executive of a so-called Madoff feeder fund, Access International Advisors Ltd., when he met Prince Charles and his sons at a polo field during a marketing tour in 2002, Markopolos said. Prince Charles put no money with Madoff, said a person familiar with the matter. Liliane Bettencourt, the world's wealthiest woman, did lose money after she entrusted part of her $22.9 billion fortune to Access, two people familiar with the matter said.
"It is my belief that Access likely had several royal families as clients invested in Madoff," Markopolos said. "He was truly masterful in using his feeder funds to draw in people close in make-up to the owners of the feeder funds. In this way he was able to expand his affinity victims to those beyond that of the Jewish community."
Markopolos made the statement in documents prepared for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as part of a nine-year effort to persuade the regulator to investigate Madoff. The documents were released as part of his testimony to a congressional panel yesterday. Markopolos, a former chief investment officer for Rampart Investment Management in Boston, tried to replicate Madoff's declared investment strategy and said he found it didn't work.
Fabrice Goguel, a lawyer for the L'Oreal SA heiress Bettencourt, couldn't immediately be reached by phone for comment. Prince Michael, who is 99th in line to the British throne, according to www.britroyals.com, couldn't be reached by e-mail.