Customers of the Safra Group, which includes one of Brazil’s biggest banks and has substantial private banking operations in the US and Europe, have emerged as victims of the Bernard Madoff scandal.

The Financial Times believes that Banco Safra of São Paulo for several years marketed a fund called Zeus Partners Limited, one of many “feeder” funds that channelled money to Bernard Madoff Securities, Mr Madoff’s New York brokerage firm, from investors around the world.