If Fairfield Greenwich Group partner Andres Piedrahita went through a period when he felt ashamed of blowing $7 billion of client money on Bernie Madoff, that period is apparently over.

Vicky Ward reports that Piedrahita is now in the Adriatic Sea, aboard his new yacht Oxygen. He took delivery of the boat in June, Vicky says, and he paid about $30 million for it:

You'd think the family -- Mr Piedrahita, 50, is FG's founder, Walter Noel's oldest son-in-law -- might be lying low, given the outrage of their ruined clients and the morass of lawsuits they face. For most of them, this is so.

For Mr Piedrahita?

Au contraire.

Look no further than the website of luxury yacht sellers Camper and Nicholsons to see pictures of "Oxygen" the new €22,000,000.00 custom-made boat that Piedrahita, took possession of in June. He is now cruising the Adriatic with wife Corina Noel and their children. I am told he has plans to cruise around the Dalmatian coast and Corfu.

Recently he has been spotted in St. Tropez and in Venice. Over the weekend I was with financiers who say they've seen him out and about as if nothing ever went awry in his life. Acquaintances believe this blatant vacationing is "a tremendous risk" -- no doubt referring to the very angry Latin Americans who allegedly gave him money to invest and could not legally declare it. I have heard he would be unwise to set foot in certain places around the globe, people are so furious with him.

Having written the piece "Greenwich Meantime" for Vanity Fair magazine about Piedrahita and his family, I'd call his current ostentatious act, stupid, shameless, and deeply offensive to all those ruined by the Fairfield Greenwich investment group.

A mutual friend told me while I was reporting the Vanity Fair piece that Piedrahita used to boast he'd "ruin his own mother if he needed to in order to make money." He is exactly the type of man who gives financiers an appalling identity at the worst possible time.

* UPDATE: FGG's PR folks weigh in with a clarification:

Vicky Ward’s Huffington Post item Monday about Andres Piedrahita – which you picked up – was incorrect and misleading in several ways. Mr. Piedrahita is trying to sell the yacht to help raise funds for a potential settlement with the Madoff bankruptcy trustee, Irving Picard. Mr. Piedrahita has been using the yacht to meet with prospective buyers. He was not able to cancel his purchase or refuse to accept delivery of the yacht.

