Bernie Madoff says banks 'had to know' about his Ponzi scheme, claims Mets' Fred Wilpon knew nothing

"They knew nothing. They knew nothing," Madoff said of Wilpon and Saul Katz, Wilpon's brother-in-law and business partner, in an interview with The New York Times.

In a lawsuit filed against the Mets owner on behalf of Madoff's victims, special trustee Irving Picard charged Wilpon and his associates profited from the scam and suggested they had knowledge of it.

Picard is asking the Wilpons to fork over $1 billion to compensate Madoff's victims, many of whom lost their life savings.

In the interview at a federal prison in Butner, N.C., where he is serving a 150-year sentence, Madoff asserted that some banks and hedge funds were "complicit" in his fraud.

"They had to know," said Madoff, who would not name the banks and hedge funds that showed a "willful blindness" to his game.

"But the attitude was sort of, 'If you're doing something wrong, we don't want to know,'" Madoff said.