THE disgraced fund manager Bernard Madoff accepted $10m (£6.8m) from a new investor days before his arrest for allegedly running a $50 billion fraud, it has been claimed.

Martin Rosenman, president of a New York-based fuel business, has lodged a complaint in a US federal bankruptcy court to recover the funds he placed in a Madoff bank account on December 5 – six days before the money manager’s arrest.

Rosenman is the latest victim to emerge from a scandal that has claimed a number of high-profile names, including Steven Spielberg, the film director, whose charitable foundation invested with Madoff.

Madoff is alleged to have been running a giant Ponzi or pyramid scheme, using the proceeds garnered from new investors in his fund to pay out money to the existing backers. He was charged with securities fraud after allegedly admitting the scheme to his sons.

It has so far proved extremely difficult to unravel what Madoff was doing with his investors’ funds.

It has emerged that the trustee overseeing the bankruptcy of Madoff’s trading firm has asked the court for access to witnesses and relevant documents that goes much wider than would be normal for a bankruptcy procedure.

Madoff has been ordered to remain in his Manhattan apartment while the investigations continue.

A US government committee, the House Financial Services committee, is due to meet tomorrow to discuss the Madoff case and the implications it has for stock-market regulation.

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