UPDATE 1-Madoff trustee seeks $150 mln investor "clawback"

(Adds details on lawsuit)

By Martha Graybow

NEW YORK, April 9 (Reuters) - The trustee liquidating Bernard Madoff's brokerage is seeking the return of $150 million that an offshore investor withdrew less than two months before the jailed swindler's arrest, saying the money should be returned to other customers.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday, signals that trustee Irving Picard is ramping up efforts to use bankruptcy law to try to "claw back" funds withdrawn by some Madoff clients.

While Madoff was running his long-standing Ponzi scheme, the lawsuit says, some customers received fund distributions that were nothing more than fictitious profits. This money should be returned to help reimburse Madoff's many victims, Picard argues in the lawsuit.

The complaint was filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan against Vizcaya Partners Ltd, described as an international business with main operations in the British Virgin Islands.

It seeks the return of $150 million wired from the Madoff firm to a custodian for Vizcaya on about Oct. 31, less than two months before Madoff's arrest. The custodian, Banque Jacob Safra Ltd of Gibraltar, was also sued.

"The purpose of this proceeding is to recover the preferential payment received by Vizcaya," the complaint says.

Picard, a court-appointed trustee, is seeking to recover assets linked to the confessed swindler's Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC.