NEW YORK (Reuters) US prosecutors won a $625 million forfeiture yesterday from accounts at JPMorgan Chase & Co traceable to a longtime associate of convicted swindler Bernard Madoff, according to court papers.

The office of the Manhattan US attorney said the money was paid to Madoff associate Carl Shapiro and certain other people and entities. The filing in US District Court in New York said the government “intends to request that the funds be distributed to victims of the fraud”.

A spokesman for the bank could not immediately be reached to comment. A spokeswoman for Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara declined immediate comment.

Court papers said Shapiro and other representatives of “Shapiro investment advisory account holders entered into an agreement with” US prosecutors in New York. Last week in a separate civil action, the court-appointed trustee liquidating the Madoff firm sued JP Morgan for $6.5 billion as part of his efforts to recover money for defrauded customers.

JPMorgan, the second-largest US bank, pledged to defend against the lawsuit, which it said “blatantly” distorts the facts and law. The trustee accused Madoff’s main banker of ignoring warning signs of his massive fraud, which prosecutors estimated at as much as $65 billion.

Madoff, 72, is serving a 150-year prison term after pleading guilty in March 2009 to a decades-long multibillion-dollar fraud that swindled thousands of investors worldwide.