An action to recover $44.8 million from Ruth Madoff has been started by the court-appointed trustee whose role is to recover money for the victims of her husband, the jailed Bernard Madoff, media reports said.

The action is the first against a member of Mr Madoff’s family, who have all denied knowledge of the fraud.

The court documents say: “Regardless of whether or not Mrs Madoff knew of the fraud her husband perpetrated… she received tens of millions of dollars… to which [she] had no good faith basis to believe she was entitled.”

Mr Madoff's $65 billion fraud, the biggest of its kind in history, has prompted soul searching in the wealth management industry, as a number of private banks, financial institutions and investors have lost money to the Ponzi scam that he carried out. In particular, it has raised questions about the degree of due diligence that wealth managers carried out into his activities.