More than half of the accounts with allowable claims against disgraced financier Bernard Madoff have now been fully repaid, according to the trustee handling recovery efforts. Trustee Irving Picard says more than $355.8 million was recently doled out, in the fifth round of repayments.

The trusteee's office says that all allowable claims of $976,592 or less have now been fully satisfied. Some 2,551 claims have been allowed, related to 2,216 accounts at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. Of that total, 1,160 accounts were fully satisfied after the most recent distribution, the trustee says.

A news release gives us more details of the recent round:

"The average payment for an allowed claim issued in the fifth distribution totaled approximately $330,000.00, the smallest payment totaled approximately $431.00 and the largest approximately $67.1 million."

The money that's being distributed was won through a variety of settlements, the trustee's office says. Billions more dollars that are currently held in reserve could be released pending judicial review in several cases.

According to the Madoff Recovery Initiative, the trustee has accumulated more than $10.5 billion, through recoveries and settlements. Of that total, the trustee has doled out more than $6.8 billion.

"The efforts of my global team continue unabated," Picard said in a news release, "and we remain committed and highly motivated to recover further substantial funds which were stolen in the Madoff fraud and return them to their rightful owners."

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