Madoff, 82, defrauded thousands of investors, to the tune of nearly US$65 billion, using a Ponzi scheme that unravelled shortly after the 2008 recession.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed the death, the New York Times reported.

Madoff was serving a 150-year prison sentence and had asked for early release in February 2020, saying that he had less than 18 months to live after entering the final stages of kidney disease and that he had been admitted to palliative care.

His enormous fraud began among friends, relatives and country club acquaintances in Manhattan and Long Island and later included major charities, universities, institutional investors, and wealthy families in Europe, Latin America and Asia.

Before the economic crash of 2008, Madoff was a celebrated figure on Wall Street as the head of what appeared to be a wildly successful investment firm which he had founded as a penny stock trader in 1960.

He was arrested in December 2008 after his family contacted investigators when he confessed to his sons that his business empire was a sham.

Bernie Madoff and his wife Ruth attempted suicide on Christmas Eve 2008. Ruth Madoff said she and her husband downed pills after their sons had contacted federal authorities, but their attempt was unsuccessful and “we woke up the next day”.

His crimes were remembered for ruining the lives of thousands. Many victims said they lost everything and one investor, who lost US$1.4 billion, took his own life.

Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 federal felonies in 2019, admitting his conduct “was wrong, indeed criminal,” and received a maximum sentence of 150 years in prison.

“When I began the Ponzi scheme I believed it would end shortly and I would be able to extricate myself and my clients from this scheme,” Madoff told the judge at his plea hearing. “However, this proved difficult, and ultimately impossible, and as the years went by I realised that my arrest and this day would eventually come.”