Could the missing $50 billion be hidden in accounts overseas?

Since his December 11 arrest, Bernard Madoff has been holed up in his $7 million Upper East Side penthouse in Manhattan. Federal investigators, on the other hand, have beens scrambling to figure out what he did with the millions of dollars in Ponzi profits. Investigators now believe that Madoff put hundreds of millions of dollars into offshore tax havens, from which they could prove quite difficult to receover.

Forensics accountants have been scouring the books as the feds work on an indictment against Madoff. According to the Observer in London, the accountants now believe that Madoff regularly send bundles of money to offshore accounts in Europe and the Caribbean.

Tracking down the estimated $50 billion that he is accused of running off with has already begun to give indication that this will be one of the longest and most complicated financial investigations on record.

Madoff was ordered by a federal judge to provide the Securities and Exchange Commission a detailed list of all of his assets by New Year's Eve. That would include all investments, lines of credit, business interests, loans, and brokerage accounts. If he's not forthcoming about his offshore accounts, investigators might find themselves in a very difficult spot.

These tax havens believed to have been used by Madoff, 70, are specifically designed to be impervious to subpoenas or investigative inquiries, which makes it tough for American officials to see or seize what's there.