Bernard Madoff was arrested in December and pleaded guilty in March to running a pyramid or 'Ponzi' scheme worth some $65 billion, under which his firm paid huge returns to old investors by collecting money from new ones. The scheme had been continuing since at least the 1990s.

In June, Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison - the judge said that he handed out the longest possible term in keeping with the 'unprecedented' fraud Madoff committed. The financier responsible for the Wall Street's biggest investment fraud was transferred in July to a federal prison in Butner, North Carolina, and is expected to remain in prison for the rest of his life.