Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), founder of the fraudulent crypto exchange FTX shall enter a plea on January 3, 2023 to criminal charges he defrauded investors and looted billions of dollars in customer funds with the direct participation of other executives of FTX and Alameda Research. Meanwhile, a credible source told Blitz that the parents of Sam Bankman-Fried have been making frantic persuasion with several “mighty politicians” and “ruling elites” with the request of “saving their son from imprisonment”. It is also learnt, people behind FTX and Alameda Research and some of the best friends of Sam Bankman-Fried, including Nishad Singh are trying to buy media’s favor by bribing the owners and few front-ranking journalists.
The source further said, before Sam Bankman-Fried would appear before the US District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan federal court on January 3, 2023, his associates are working on secretly injecting huge amount of cash to a number of countries including India, the United Arab Emirates, Dominica and few African nations. They even are trying to secretly down-load substantial amount of cash in Pakistan, where it would be invested in narco-trade.
US District Judge Lewis Kaplan was assigned to the came of FTX after judge recused herself because her husband’s law firm had advised Sam Bankman-Fried and fraudulent crypto exchange FTX before its collapse. Meanwhile, people are surprised seeing an arrangement made for Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) to appear for guilty-plea to the same judge. It is anticipated by many that this arrangement might be the result of frantic persuasions of SBF’s parents and partners in hiding.
Prosecutors have accused Bankman-Fried of engaging in a years-long “fraud of epic proportions”, by using customer deposits to support his Alameda Research hedge fund firm, buy real estate and make political contributions.
Sam Bankman-Fried is charged with two counts of wire fraud and six counts of conspiracy, including to launder money and commit campaign finance violations, and if convicted could spend decades in prison.
But, under “special arrangement” through his guilty-plea to a questionable judge may finally let him get an imprisonment for maximum three years, while this imprisonment will clean Sam Bankman-Fried from bothering about refunding billions of dollars that he and his associates have cheated from hundreds of thousands of people.
It may be mentioned here that, before his December 12 arrest, Sam Bankman-Fried acknowledged risk-management failures at FTX, but said he did not believe he was criminally liable.
Two of his associates, former Alameda chief executive Caroline Ellison and former FTX chief technology officer Gary Wang, have pleaded guilty over their roles in FTX’s collapse and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.
Sam Bankman-Fried was released on December 22 on a US$250 million bond and ordered to stay with his parents in Palo Alto, California, where they teach at Stanford Law School. He is subject to electronic monitoring.
FTX filed for bankruptcy protection on November 11. Its new chief executive, John Ray, told Congress on December 13 that the exchange lost US$8 billion of customer money while being run by “grossly inexperienced, non-sophisticated individuals”.
Meanwhile, according to media reports, federal prosecutors are investigating an alleged cybercrime that drained more than US$370 million from crypto exchange FTX hours after it filed for bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported citing a person familiar with the case.
The criminal probe into the stolen assets, launched by the Department of Justice is separate from fraud case against FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried, the report added.
Sam Bankman-Fried founded FTX in 2019 and rode a boom in the values of bitcoin and other digital assets to become a billionaire several times over as well as an influential donor to U.S. political campaigns.
The FTX collapse has fanned fears about the future of the crypto industry after the beleaguered exchange outlined a “severe liquidity crisis”.
