Sonja Kohn's Bank Brought Billions Of Dollars To Bernie Madoff's Company
Netflix’s newest docuseries, Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street, centers around the crimes of Wall Street financier Bernard “Bernie” Madoff, and his 2008 Ponzi scheme scandal. In case you're not familiar, Madoff stole $65 billion from thousands of clients before he was finally arrested in 2008, according to History.
But there's one character in this story who played a large role in bringing in clients and funds to Madoff's investment firm: “Austria’s Woman on Wall Street,” otherwise known as Sonja Kohn.
Kohn unofficially scouted out international clients. She went on to invest their funds, which were held at her bank in Austria, into Madoff's investment firm. However, the 74-year-old banker has denied knowing Madoff was involved in anything illegal and claims that she was also a victim of his scheme. She was never indicted on any charges, either.
Ahead, find out how Kohn got into banking, where she met Madoff, her net worth, and where she is today.
Sonja Kohn was born in Austria.
In 1948, Kohn was born to a family of Eastern European Jewish refugees who moved to Vienna after World War II, per Newsweek and The New York Times. She married Erwin Kohn in 1948, and the couple managed an import-export business before moving to Milan in the 1970s.
The couple then worked between Milan and Zurich before emigrating to Monsey, New York, in 1983, according to Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal.
Kohn found clients for Madoff.
In 1985, she began working at Merrill Lynch. Around that time, she was introduced to Madoff by a mutual friend, Maurice “Sonny” Cohn, who was Madoff's partner at Cohmad Securities, Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal reported. After meeting Madoff, who was a fund manager at the time (his infamous investment securities company wasn't founded until later, in 1960), the two became friends, The New York Times reported.
Kohn and her husband went on to help Madoff book wealthy clients for his firm (mainly Russians, Ukrainians, and Israelis), Newsweek and The New York Times reported.
Sonja Kohn was a tough business woman.
In fact, she founded three different ones: the Windsor IBC brokerage firm in 1987, the Eurovaleur brokerage firm in 1990, and Bank Medici in 1994. Later, she also founded Medici Realty, per Newsweek and Intelligencer.
Bank Medici, unfortunately, invested a lot of money from its client's funds in Madoff's business, which was later lost in the Ponzi scheme. In fact, the amount of client money invested in his firm made up a majority of Bank Medici's total funds, per The New York Times.
All in, Bank Medici lost $3 billion in investments during the Madoff scandal, per The Wall Street Journal. When Madoff was eventually arrested in 2008, Kohn claimed she had no idea fraud was occurring, and that she was also a victim, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Kohn brought in clients for Madoff's company.
Through her connections, she helped private wealth managers invest money through Madoff's firm.
After Madoff's arrest in 2008, Bank Medici was taken over by Austrian regulators when Kohn left at the end of 2008, according to Business Insider, who wrote that she "dropped out of sight" because she was afraid clients would come after her. An Austrian government-appointed commissioner, Gerhard Altenberger, started running the bank in 2009, per The New York Times.
In May of 2009, the Austrian Financial Market Authority withdrew the bank's license because their finances did not meet requirements, according to The Wall Street Journal. The bank had lost a lot of money after Madoff's scheme was discovered, and it didn't have the requisite $6.9 million in investor share value to run the bank in Austria, per The Wall Street Journal.
In 2010, a lawsuit filed by Madoff Trustee Irving Picard claimed Kohn owed victims around $19.6 billion for giving money to Madoff, and even suggested she received $62 million in kickbacks. However, Kohn's lawyers denied the claim that she received any funds, according to The New York Times. To this day, she hasn't been indicted or arrested.
What is Sonja’s Kohn’s net worth?
There aren’t a ton of reputable sources on this topic, but some outlets report that her net worth could be in the ballpark of between $5 million and $10 million.
Where is Sonja Kohn now?
As of 2009, she had “gone into hiding,” and as of 2011, Kohn had not been back to the United States, per Newsweek and Intelligencer. Apparently, she hasn’t been answering press inquiries and is living a pretty low-key life.
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