The luxury New York penthouse of the imprisoned fraudster Bernard Madoff and his wife, Ruth, has been seized by US marshals, officials said today.

Mrs Madoff was present when agents took possession of the $7 million (£4.3 million) four-bedroom apartment on Manhattan’s East Side under a court order and then she left. It was not known where she would live and her lawyer could not be reached for comment.

Madoff, 71, was sentenced on Monday to an effective life term - a maximum of 150 years - for Wall Street’s biggest investment fraud of as much as $65 billion. He was arrested by last December and pleaded guilty in March.

Roland Ubaldo, a spokesman for the US Marshals Service, said that marshals spent about three hours securing the premises.

“Restitution for the victims is the government’s top priority," Joseph Guccione, the US Marshal for Manhattan, said in an e-mailed statement. “Ruth Madoff has vacated the residence and surrendered all saleable personal property within the residence to the United States Marshals Service.

“The Madoffs agreed with US prosecutors to forfeit any claims to their assets, property and accounts with proceeds going to the thousands of investors defrauded in his worldwide scheme.”

Court documents said the apartment’s contents include a Steinway piano valued at $39,000, clocks, lamps, lighting fixtures and sconces worth about $1.7 million; paintings, prints and photographs worth $1.6 million and other valuables.

Under an agreement with prosecutors made public on Friday, Ruth Madoff, 68, agreed to forfeit any claims to $80 million in assets and was left with $2.5 million in cash. She also gave up rights to $2.6 million in jewellery, a mink coat appraised at $12,500 and a Russian sable worth $36,000.

The deal includes the Manhattan apartment, an $11 million house in Palm Beach, Florida, and a $3 million residence on Long Island, New York. The deal does not rule out future criminal or civil charges by regulators.

US District Judge Denny Chin sentenced Madoff to 150 years in prison on Monday in Manhattan federal court, attended by angry former customers whose trust he betrayed.

Madoff was returned to a cell near the courthouse until it is decided which prison he should be sent to.

Madoff was also ordered to forfeit claims to $170 billion, the amount that US prosecutors said flowed through his principal account over the decades. The figure is symbolic because he is not believed to possess anywhere near that much in money or assets.

Times Recommends

• 'New York has lost its edge'
• Copenhagen will fail – and quite right too
• More than 17,000 new underwater species found