Reuters UK – Five months after Bernard Madoff’s massive fraud was revealed, little of his victims’ money has been found and it appears increasingly likely that the worldwide hunt for their missing billions will drag on for years.

So far, the court-appointed trustee sorting through Wall Street’s biggest investment fraud has located only about $1 billion (656 million pounds) to be distributed to defrauded customers — a fraction of the $65 billion the confessed con man’s records purported to have in nearly 7,000 client accounts when the FBI arrested him in December.

Trustee Irving Picard has signalled, however, that he is ramping up efforts to find more money, a ray of hope for victims if these funds can ever be tracked down and shared among them.

At this relatively early stage of Picard’s investigation, though, it is unclear if that is possible.

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Boston Globe – A federal judge barred Samuel Israel, the convicted founder of hedge fund firm Bayou Group LLC, from entering a plea to bail jumping, saying his addiction to methadone may have impaired his judgment.

Israel, who sought to plead guilty yesterday in US District Court in White Plains, N.Y., told US District Judge Kenneth Karas that his ability to understand the proceedings was "60 to 70 percent."

Prosecutors said the 49-year-old faked suicide and fled the day he was to begin a 20-year sentence for his conviction in a $400 million fraud.

"I have to be satisfied that you’re competent," Karas said, rejecting the plea to one count of failure to appear. "The fact that there is some doubt about that makes it imprudent to go forward today."

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