Tag • #ftx

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‘He knew it was wrong’: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison over FTX fraud

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Thursday, 28 March - 18:38

Judge orders disgraced crypto mogul to forfeit $11bn in assets and says he showed no remorse for his crimes

Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced cryptocurrency mogul who perpetrated one of the largest financial frauds in history, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison and ordered to forfeit $11bn in assets. His lawyer reiterated a pledge to appeal the sentence the same day.

The judge, Lewis Kaplan, issued the penalty in a Manhattan courtroom on Thursday. Bankman-Fried, the former chief executive of the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was convicted of fraud and conspiracy to launder money late last year.

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Sam Bankman-Fried is going to prison. The crypto industry isn’t any better for it

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Thursday, 28 March - 16:00

There have been no changes since the ex-mogul’s conviction as lawmakers fail to pass regulations to protect the public

There is a palpable feeling of relief in the cryptocurrency industry. Evangelists are preaching the good news that the industry has been purged of the Sam Bankman-Frieds, the Alex Mashinskys , the Do Kwons and the Changpeng Zhaos of the world. They proclaim that crypto can finally ascend from its purgatorial, “wild west” days to become a respectable sector of the financial world blessed by regulators and speculators alike.

That exultant attitude has contributed to surging cryptocurrency prices, which surpassed previous all-time highs in the weeks leading up to Bankman-Fried’s sentencing of 25 years in prison on Thursday.

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Faillite de FTX : Sam Bankman-Fried condamné à 25 ans de prison

news.movim.eu / Numerama · Thursday, 28 March - 15:50

Sam Bankman-Fried a reçu sa sentence : le patron déchu de FTX a été condamné à 25 ans de prison. Il a été reconnu coupable de fraude, d'association de malfaiteurs, et de blanchiment d'argent.

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Sam Bankman-Fried to be sentenced for multibillion-dollar crypto fraud – live

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Thursday, 28 March - 12:10

Former CEO of now bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange faces more than 100 years in prison if given maximum penalty

In mid-March, federal prosecutors requested that judge Lewis Kaplan sentence Bankman-Fried to at least four decades in prison. The maximum penalty he could face would amount to more than 100 years.

“His life in recent years has been one of unmatched greed and hubris; of ambition and rationalization; and courting risk and gambling repeatedly with other people’s money,” the US attorneys in Manhattan wrote. “And even now Bankman-Fried refuses to admit what he did was wrong.”

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Sam Bankman-Fried will grow old in jail. But don’t forget those who basked in his orbit | Aditya Chakrabortty

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Thursday, 28 March - 06:00

If the high-rollers surrounding the disgraced FTX founder had any qualms about taking his money, they didn’t show it

Later today, a man who has recently turned 32 will be hauled in front of a Manhattan judge. Already convicted of huge fraud , he knows he’s going to prison. The only question is for how long. If the US government gets its way, he will not emerge before his 80th birthday.

This is the final disgrace of Sam Bankman-Fried. The judge, politicians and the world’s press will declare him one of the biggest swindlers in American history. They will note how within three years he built a marketplace for digital currencies, or crypto, that was worth around $32bn – and made himself the world’s richest person under 30. Still it wasn’t enough. He spent perhaps $8bn of his customers’ savings on luxury homes, risky investments and whatever else took his fancy.

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‘Old-fashioned embezzlement’: where did all of FTX’s money go?

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Wednesday, 27 March - 13:00

Sam Bankman-Fried oversaw its collapse – now the crypto firm is in bankruptcy proceedings as contentious as his fraud trial

Sam Bankman-Fried, former CEO of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX , presided over a spectacular collapse that cost his customers billions of dollars. He argues in court filings that anyone owed money by FTX “will eventually be paid in full”. The US government says he’s living in a fantasy land.

Last week, FTX’s caretaker, John Ray III, appointed to oversee the company’s bankruptcy proceedings, reminded the court that Bankman-Fried had masterminded a “colossal fraud”, lived a “life of delusion”, and called Bankman-Fried’s lawyers’ claim that no one had been harmed as “categorically, callously, and demonstrably false”.

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SBF says “dishonesty and unfair dealing” aren’t fraud, seeks to dismiss charges

news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Tuesday, 9 May, 2023 - 19:52 · 1 minute

SBF says “dishonesty and unfair dealing” aren’t fraud, seeks to dismiss charges

Enlarge (credit: Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images North America )

Late Monday, legally embroiled FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried moved to dismiss the majority of criminal charges lobbed against him by the United States government after his cryptocurrency exchange went bankrupt in 2022.

In documents filed in a Manhattan federal court, the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell shared Bankman-Fried's first official legal defense. Lawyers accused the US of a "troubling" and "classic rush to judgment," claiming that the government didn't even wait to receive "millions of documents" and "other evidence" against Bankman-Fried before "improperly seeking" to turn "civil and regulatory issues into federal crimes."

After FTX's collapse last year, federal prosecutors acted quickly to intervene, within a month alleging that Bankman-Fried was stealing billions in customer funds , defrauding investors, committing bank and wire fraud, providing improper loans, misleading lenders, transmitting money without a license, making illegal campaign contributions, bribing China officials , and other crimes. Through it all, Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty. Now, in his motion to dismiss, Bankman-Fried has requested an oral argument to "fight these baseless charges" and "clear his name." He's asking the court to dismiss 10 out of 13 charges, arguing that federal prosecutors have failed to substantiate most of their claims.

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SBF paid $40M bribe to unfreeze crypto trading accounts in China, US charges

news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Tuesday, 28 March, 2023 - 18:56

Then-FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried speaks during a Congressional hearing.

Enlarge / Then-CEO of FTX Sam Bankman-Fried speaks during a House Committee on Financial Services hearing on December 8, 2021, in Washington, DC. (credit: Getty Images | The Washington Post)

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is facing a new criminal charge, with an updated indictment alleging that he violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act when he "authorized and directed a bribe of at least $40 million to one or more Chinese government officials."

The superseding indictment returned by a federal grand jury in New York yesterday, and unsealed today, said the bribe's purpose "was to influence and induce one or more Chinese government officials to unfreeze certain Alameda trading accounts containing over $1 billion in cryptocurrency, which had been frozen by Chinese authorities." Including the new charge, Bankman-Fried now faces 13 criminal counts.

In early 2021, Chinese law enforcement officials froze certain Alameda accounts on two of China's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, the indictment said. Bankman-Fried "understood that the Accounts had been frozen by Chinese authorities as part of an ongoing investigation of a particular Alameda trading counterparty."

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Where did FTX customer money go? Firm says Bankman-Fried took $2.2 billion

news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Thursday, 16 March, 2023 - 16:53

Sam Bankman-Fried photographed on the street outside a New York courthouse.

Enlarge / Sam Bankman-Fried arrives at court in New York on Feb. 16, 2023. (credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg)

Sam Bankman-Fried received about $2.2 billion in payments and loans from FTX entities, mainly from Alameda Research, FTX and its affiliated debtors said yesterday. Bankman-Fried's fellow executives received another $951 million combined, including $839 million to three executives who already pleaded guilty to fraud, FTX and its debtors said in a press release describing a series of filings made in US Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.

As summarized by the Financial Times , "Bankman-Fried and five members of his inner circle transferred $3.2 billion in total to their personal accounts in the form of 'payments and loans,' the funds primarily coming from Alameda Research, a crypto trading hedge fund affiliated with FTX." John Ray, the new CEO leading FTX through bankruptcy proceedings, "has been seeking to identify the location of cryptocurrency and other assets that can be eventually returned to the millions of FTX customers whose accounts have been frozen since its collapse," the Financial Times noted.

Bankman-Fried, who faces criminal fraud and conspiracy charges, is accused of improperly diverting billions of dollars of FTX customer funds to Alameda.

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