PARIS (Bloomberg) - Paris prosecutors last week opened two preliminary investigations based on complaints about funds linked to confessed fraudster Bernard Madoff and one of them may target BNP Paribas SA, a prosecutors' office spokeswoman said.

BNP, France's biggest bank, is "susceptible to being the focus" of a probe after Bethune Borghese SAS sued an unidentified party, alleging forgery and abuse of trust over money invested in Madoff-linked funds, spokeswoman Isabelle Montagne said yesterday.

The second probe makes similar assertions against an unidentified French investment group that was licensed to provide investment advice and allegedly tricked a woman into investing in a Madoff-linked group in Bermuda, said her lawyer Julien Visconti.

The probes are the second and third the Paris prosecutors have opened related to Madoff, the New Yorker who pleaded guilty March 12 to defrauding investors. He may have cheated French investors out of more than 500 million euros ($678 million), according to France's market regulator.

A BNP representative who declined to be identified said the bank has not seen the complaint and cannot comment.

Bethune Borghese, a real estate company based in Neuilly, near Paris, did not claim specific losses, Ms Montagne said.

The woman who filed the second complaint suffered about $2 million in losses after investing the proceeds of the sale of her apartment in 2006, Mr. Visconti said yesterday. He said that the allegations, including offering financial services without a license, are punishable by as much as five years in prison and 375,000 euros in fines.

A decision on whether to open full-scale investigations into the claims may be made within the next few weeks, Ms Montagne said.