AUSTIN, Texas—The Texas treasury lost $19.5 million through an investment in the Ponzi scheme run by convicted financial swindler Bernard Madoff.
The Houston Chronicle reported Wednesday that the money was part of a $224.5 million investment the Texas Treasury Safekeeping Trust Co. had with a Texas-based hedge fund called Austin Capital Safe Harbor.
Austin Capital closed in May due to losses it suffered in one of Madoff’s scam investment funds.
R.J. DeSilva, a spokesman for state Comptroller Susan Combs, said the $19.5 million was written off last December after Austin Capital notified the state the money had been lost when Madoff’s Ponzi scheme collapsed.
