Bernard Madoff’s wife withdrew $15.5 million from a Massachusetts brokerage that fed clients to her husband in the three weeks before his arrest, according to court documents filed by Massachusetts securities regulators, the Financial Times reports. Many private banks and wealth managers have been hit by the alleged Ponzi scheme run by Mr Madoff.

Mrs Madoff withdrew $5.5 million from Cohmad Securities on 25 November and an additional $10 million on 10 December, according to two wire transfer receipts attached to a complaint filed by William Galvin, the Massachusetts secretary of state.

Mr Galvin, who wants to revoke Cohmad Securities’ registration in Massachusetts for failing to co-operate with his investigation, says many Massachusetts investors who think they lost money to Mr Madoff sent funds via Cohmad. Mr Madoff is a co-founder and shareholder of Cohmad.

The filing by Mr Galvin also says Sonja Kohn, president and majority shareholder of Bank Medici, taken over by the Austrian government after announcing over $2.1 billion in exposure to Mr Madoff, had about $526,000 in “payments” from Madoff Securities that were “filtered” via Cohmad Securities, the report continues.