Douglas Kelley, the trustee for bankrupt entities Ponzi scheme-operator Tom Petters once ran, asked a bankruptcy judge on Monday for permission to pursue clawback claims in 26 countries against recipients of money that Petters illegally obtained, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The list of affected countries — Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Ireland, Spain and Switzerland — spans the world, and Kelley said the number is expected to expand. In 2009, Petters was convicted of 20 counts of fraud and sentenced to 50 years in prison for perpetuating a Ponzi scheme that cost investors $3.5 billion. A bid to shorten his sentence to 30 years failed in December, with a federal judge in Minnesota calling the request “one final con” by a man “staring into the abyss of nearly 15,000 days of incarceration.”
