The US government wants to seize funds paid to the Jordan Belfort, the crooked stockbroker who inspired the Oscar-tipped Martin Scorsese black comedy The Wolf of Wall Street, in the hope of compensating thousands of Belfort's victims.

Justice department officials believe at least 50% of rights payments, totalling more than $1m (£610,000), received by Belfort could be seized. The Wolf of Wall Street, which last night won Leonardo DiCaprio the 2014 Golden Globe for best actor in a comedy or musical, is based largely on Belfort's book of the same name. It documents Belfort's activities at the discredited Stratton Oakmont brokerage house in the 1990s, which eventually saw the stockbroker convicted of money-laundering and securities fraud. He served 22 months of a four-year sentence.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Belfort was bound over to repay $110.4m to victims as part of his sentencing in 2003. Thus far, he has paid only $11.6m, according to federal prosecutors. Belfort is said to be fighting attempts to pay further compensation because he believes his supervised release has terminated.

The news will come as further embarrassment for Scorsese and DiCaprio, a hands-on producer on The Wolf of Wall Street, amid suggestions that Belfort is benefiting from the high-profile publicity surrounding the film while his victims are not. An old video of DiCaprio giving a testimonial to the stockbroker's public-speaking credentials recently re-emerged amid concerns that rival studios are targeting the controversial comedy as part of an awards season "dirty-tricks" campaign.

The daughter of a man linked to the discredited financial schemes depicted in the film has attacked Scorsese and DiCaprio for glamorising a lifestyle of "fun sexcapades and coke binges". The director and star found themselves heckled at an Oscars screening earlier this month, and have faced criticism from an animal rights group calling for a boycott over the use of a live chimp in one of the film's scenes of Wall Street excess.

DiCaprio has defended the film as a "cautionary tale". "I hope people understand we're not condoning this behaviour, that we're indicting it," he told Variety last month. "The book was a cautionary tale and if you sit through the end of the film, you'll realise what we're saying about these people and this world, because it's an intoxicating one."