NEW YORK (Bloomberg) — The trustee liquidating Bernard Madoff's business sued Bermuda-based Alpha Fund, claiming the hedge fund received almost $213 million in transfers from the convicted conman's firm in the past two years.

That was one of three lawsuits filed by trustee Irving Picard which sue HSBC Holdings Plc and several other funds in a legal move to recover a combined total of as much as $431 million for Madoff's victims.

Trustee Irving Picard sued HSBC and Cayman Islands-based Primeo Fund on Wednesday in US Bankruptcy Court in New York, seeking as much as $150 million that the convicted con man transferred to Primeo.

"Hedge funds and funds of funds like Primeo were sophisticated investors" and they "knew or should have known that Madoff's investment advisory business was predicated on fraud", according to the complaint.

The suit against Alpha also named London-based HSBC Bank Plc and a Luxembourg-based unit, which Mr. Picard alleged were conduits for the shifting of money from Madoff to Alpha Prime.

Also yesterday, Picard sued Thybo Asset Management Ltd. and three related funds to recover $62 million that the investment firm received from Madoff's Ponzi scheme. Thybo Asset Management knew or should have known that New York-based Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities LLC was based on fraud, Mr. Picard said.

Madoff, 71, pleaded guilty in March and was sentenced on June 29 to 150 years in prison for using money from new clients to pay earlier investors in the biggest US Ponzi scheme. Prosecutors said the money manager told clients they had as much as $65 billion invested with him. The government has documented losses of about $13 billion. Picard, hired by the Securities Investor Protection Corp., said this month that $1.08 billion had been recovered.

Securities in Madoff's funds were traded for Primeo relying on London-based HSBC as a beneficiary bank and HSBC Securities Services (Luxembourg) SA as an asset custodian, Mr. Picard said.

Through HSBC, Primeo invested in Madoff's funds and gained purported average annual returns of 10 percent to 19 percent from 1997 through 2006, according to the suit. The trustee seeks funds Madoff transferred to Primeo's HSBC accounts.

"Various cases against HSBC have been commenced which are at a very early stage," HSBC spokeswoman Diane Bergan said in an e-mailed statement. "HSBC continues to believe that it has good defences to the claims and will vigorously defend itself against the actions that have been brought."

From January 2005 to December 11, 2008 — the day Madoff was arrested and the US Securities and Exchange Commission sued him — Alpha Prime received transfers via HSBC and beneficial tax payments of almost $213 million, according to the complaint against that fund.

HSBC, its subsidiary and other unnamed entities invested $227.6 million with Madoff's firm on behalf of Alpha Prime starting in June 2003, according to the complaint.

A representative of Alpha Prime couldn't be located for comment.

Thybo runs funds of hedge funds, according to its website. Thybo Investments grew out of the treasury unit of the group of companies owned by the Thyssen Bornemisza family, according to the website. Rod Morley, a spokesman for Thybo Advisory SAM in Monaco, didn't immediately return a call seeking comment yesterday.