Pedro Almodóvar Hit By Madoff Financial Scandal, Along With Other Celebrities

The casualty list from the Madoff financial scandal now includes famed director Pedro Almodóvar, whose production company was invested in one of the affected funds. Bernard Madoff, in case all that Christmas cake gave you temporary memory loss, is the guy who dicked investors out of 50 billion dollars recently, and individuals and funds worldwide are still trying to sort out who was affected and how badly.

“There is no innocent explanation,” Madoff said, according to the criminal complaint. He told the agents that it was all his fault, and that he “paid investors with money that wasn’t there.”

Madoff made his money via a “ponzi” scheme -basically paying your first customer with money made from your second customer ad infinitum, so no one thinks to ask if there’s actually any new money being made. He’d been running it since at least 2005, and had made a name for himself as one of the best hedge fund managers out there, with his impressive returns attracting some extremely wealthy clients.

Pedro Almodóvar and his brother Agustin had invested their production company, El Deseo, in Oyster Investments, which was itself invested in one of the funds affected by the Madoff fraud, Lux Invest. So luckily for Almodóvar, his company was only affected tangentially, although significantly. Other casualties from the fallout include Steven Spielberg (who reportedly lost “millions”) and Uma Thurman’s fiance, businessman Arpad Busson, who lost around 160 million in the fraud.

Bernard Madoff arrested over alleged $50 billion fraud [Yahoo]

STEVEN SPIELBERG, PEDRO ALMODÓVAR, ARPAD BUSSON Y ALICIA KOPLOWITZ, ENTRE LOS AFECTADOS POR EL FRAUDE DE MADOFF [Hola]