The Madoff Victim Fund, created to facilitate the compensation of victims of Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, has received more than 51,700 claims from investor victims seeking an estimated $40 billion, Reuters reports.

Richard Breeden, appointed by the U.S. Department of Justice to oversee the $4.05 billion victim fund, noted in a statement on the fund’s website: “The MVF claims showed a strikingly larger group of victims—with much larger losses—than anyone previously knew to exist.”