The US accuses the founder of FTX of four new financial crimes

The federal authorities of USA They accused this Thursday of four new crimes the founder of the ill-fated cryptocurrency platform FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, in connection with the theft of money from his clients’ deposits to support the operations of the company and its associated investment fund, Alameda Research; make charitable contributions and political donations and get rich.

The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, which is investigating the collapse of the platform, amended the initial indictment to include one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and three counts of wire fraud against FTX customers, committed between 2019 and 2022.

According to the legal document, Bankman-Fried, who now faces a total of 12 criminal charges, committed this multi-million dollar fraud through a series of schemes that allowed him, through Alameda, to “to access and steal the deposits without being detected”.

He also used the money for fund purchases and venture investments and to make “tens of millions of dollars in illegal contributions” to both Democrats and Republicans, in an attempt to get FTX-friendly legislation passed, sometimes on behalf of two platform executives to hide where they came from and evade federal election laws.

“In order to prevent certain contributions from being publicly reported on his behalf, Bankman-Fried conspired and made certain political contributions on behalf of two other FTX executives.”and finally chose to make the donation an individual who appears identified by a pseudonym in the legal document.

The Prosecution cites an example in 2022 when Bankman-Fried and “Others agreed that he and his associates should contribute at least $1 million to a super PAC that was backing a candidate running for a seat in the United States Congress and seemed be affiliated with pro-LGBTQ (community) issues.”

The money used for the contributions came from Alameda bank accounts, where the money deposited by its clients arrived.

Specifically, Bankman-Fried and his partners made more than 300 political donations worth tens of millions of dollars. “that were illegal because they were made through fake donors or with corporate funds, often allowing you to bypass contribution limits”, according to the indictment.

Last December, Sam Bankman-Fried was indicted by the Manhattan US Attorney’s Office on eight charges, primarily related to fraud or conspiracy to commit fraud, to which he pleaded not guilty.

According to those charges, the defendant and his associates “knowingly and intentionally designed a plot and scheme to defraud, obtain money and property by means of false or fraudulent simulations, representations and promises”and “agreed with others to deceive customers of ftx.com misappropriating its deposits and using them to pay expenses and debts of Alameda Research.”

Alameda Research was the investment firm created by Bankman-Fried himself in 2017, in which he allegedly used billions of dollars from FTX clients without their knowledge to carry out risky operations.

Source: EFE