Disgraced FTX founder and Democrat super donor Sam Bankman-Fried has been arrested on a number of charges including orchestrating a “years-long fraud.” Here are some of the previous allegations made against Bankman-Fried leading up to his arrest.
Breitbart News reported earlier today that disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has been indicted on eight criminal charges including wire fraud and conspiracy by misusing customer funds, SBF has another headache as the SEC has levied separate charges against the Democrat super donor.
Bankman-Fried, 30, was arrested in the Bahamas, where he lived and ran FTX from, on Monday and is expected to appear in court in Nassau on Tuesday morning for an extradition hearing. The SEC also alleges that Bankman-Friend “orchestrated a years-long fraud” to conceal the diversion of customer funds to Alameda Research from FTX investors.
Despite the shadiness surrounding the collapse of FTX and all signs pointing to eventual criminal charges, Bankman-Fried has spent the past few weeks going on a media speaking tour where he apologized for the collapse of the company and attempted to play dumb, claiming he had no knowledge of the internal workings of the billion dollar exchange he ran.
Fried appeared via video link at the New York Times’ DealBook Summit earlier this month to discuss the collapse of the crypto firm. During the summit, Bankman-Fried tried to claim that he “didn’t ever try to commit fraud on anyone,” and said that he made mistakes as CEO of the company. “There are things I would do anything to do over again,” he said. “I was shocked by what happened this month.”
One of the primary allegations against Fried is a simple one: He allegedly used funds lodged into FTX customers’ accounts to finance his crypto investment firm, Alameda Research. It is alleged that he did this without the knowledge of FTX customers and that FTX was insolvent for some time due to customer funds being gambled away by Alameda.
Trading platforms are generally required to hold enough money to match what customers deposit. This means that if all customers decided to withdraw all of their money at once, the platform would have enough to cover all transactions. FTX allegedly did not have nearly enough money to make its customers whole when they attempted to cash out.
One of the most interesting outcomes of the investigation will relate to the alleged violation of campaign finance laws. Bankman-Fried is a Democrat mega-donor who has donated roughly $40 million to Democrat politicians and PACs. Bankman-Fried later alleged, when questioned about his political bias, that he has also given money to Republicans, but did so secretly. There appears to be no evidence of this yet.
Now authorities are claiming that Bankman-Fried not only made donations to campaigns “in the names of other persons,” violating campaign finance laws, but that the money he donated actually belonged to FTX users.
Many have also questioned Bankman-Fried’s version of events, such as the investigative YouTuber Stephen Findeisen, better known by online handle CoffeeZilla, who appears to be one of the only members of the media to grill Bankman-Fried on his claims during live Twitter Spaces. Just days ago, CoffeeZilla appeared to get Bankman-Fried to admit to fraud:
In comparison, the New York Times lobbed softballs at Bankman-Fried and accepted his excuse that he just “messed up.”
The current charges against Bankman-Fried include conspiracy to defraud investors, lenders, and the United States, committing securities and commodities fraud, money laundering, and violating campaign finance laws.
Breitbart News will continue to follow the story closely.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan
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