Participants in the Madoff investment scandal Stanley Chais, a philanthropist who invested heavily with Mr. Madoff, and Carl J. Shapiro, one of the money manager's oldest friends, are among at least eight Madoff investors and associates being scrutinized by the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan. Prosecutors are continuing to probe Madoff family members and employees. Others include: Frank Avellino, a Florida accountant who ran an investment fund that invested client money; Noel Levine, a real-estate investor who works out of a two-room office on the 17th floor, next door to Madoff's fraudulent investment operation, and Palm Beach investor Robert Jaffe, a son-in-law of Mr. Shapiro who
High-yield investment program encouraged to let their gains compound and to recruit new members into a "forced matrix" to increase their returns. The SEC contends that this forced matrix payout scheme constitutes a pyramid scheme. New investors had to pay a monthly subscription fee of between US$10 and US$99, and provide an initial investment of up to $10,000. The higher the initial investment, the higher the returns appeared. The SEC stated that the Zeekler website brought in only about 1% of the Zeek Rewards company's purported income and that the vast majority of disbursed funds were paid from new investments. The SEC alleges