Bernie Madoff, famously known as a ponzi mastermind, has died in a U.S. federal prison, believed to be from natural causes. He was 82.

The news of his death at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina, was confirmed by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Mr Madoff was jailed in 2009, after pleading guilty to running a decades-long Ponzi scheme. His sentence was a 150-year prison sentence after defrauding as many as 37,000 people in 136 countries spanning over four decades.

His arrest came after his sons confronted him over plans to distribute hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses to employees months ahead of schedule, Mark and Andrew Madoff then consulted their lawyers who advised them to turn him in. His arrest was the day after.

Mr Madoff’s career in finance started when he was 22 with $5,000 he earned from working jobs in New York. He set up Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities in 1960. The company was investigated eight times by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission because of its inflow. Mr Madoff had also served as chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange.

Last year a judge refused a request for early release for Mr Madoff, after it was found that he suffered from kidney failure. The ruling by Judge Denny Chin held that Mr Madoff committed “one of the most egregious financial crimes of all time.”