SFO drops Madoff UK case over lack of evidence

It says it would be unable to obtain a realistic prospect of conviction against Madoff Securities International Ltd. This is despite the London unit, which was officially placed into liquidation in January, being owned almost exclusively by Bernie Madoff himself. It functioned as his proprietary trading unit and his personal piggy bank, according to investigators. It listed assets of $500m and debt of more than $1bn, when it filed for bankruptcy in Florida last year. In its charges against Madoff, the US government claimed he used the UK arm to launder client money by transferring...