Sam Bankman-Fried Allegedly Received $2.2 Billion From FTX Entities

Former crypto multi-billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried has allegedly received billions of dollars from crypto exchange FTX, which collapsed into Chapter 11 last November.

The new management of FTX alleged on Wednesday in court filings that Sam Bankman-Fried and five of his inner circle (including company founders and key staff) transferred a total of $3.2bn into their personal accounts via “payments and loans”.

Indeed, the filings allege that personal accounts belonging to Sam Bankman-Fried received $2.2bn from entities linked to the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange.

Payments, loans

These payments were made chiefly from Alameda Research hedge fund, FTX’s new management.

The alleged payments were as follows:

• $2.2 billion to Sam Bankman-Fried;
• $587 million to Nishad Singh;
• $246 million to Zixiao “Gary” Wang;
• $87 million to Ryan Salame;
• $25 million to John Samuel Trabucco;
• $6 million to Caroline Ellison

Gary Wang, Caroline Ellison and recently Nishad Singh have pleaded guilty, and are co-operating with US prosecutors.

Ellison, the former head of Alameda who received $6m, has previously said that hedge fund had “an unlimited line of credit on FTX.com” from 2019 to 2022.

And FTX alleged that the transfers did not include over $240 million spent to purchase luxury property in the Bahamas, political and charitable donations made directly by the FTX debtors, and substantial transfers to non-debtor units in the Bahamas and other jurisdictions.

A lawyer for Bankman-Fried declined to comment on the filings.

October trial

Earlier this month the legal team of Sam Bankman-Fried suggested they may seek to delay his trial – slated for 2 October 2023.

Bankman-Fried has been under house arrest with a $250 million bond, since he pleaded not guilty to eight federal fraud and conspiracy charges over his role in the collapse of the FTX crypto exchange, when a multi-billion dollar hole was found in its balance sheet.

Last month federal authorities levelled four more criminal charges against Bankman-Fried, alleging he facilitated hundreds of illegal political donations totalling tens of millions of dollars.

In total, Bankman-Fried now faces a total of 12 criminal charges, and if found guilty, could be sentenced to over 115 years in prison.

Bail conditions

Last month Bankman-Fried was ordered to return to a Manhattan courtroom, after it emerged he had used a virtual private network (VPN) whilst under strict house arrest.

Bankman-Fried said he used the VPN to watch the super bowl and other sporting events.

US prosecutors recently alleged that as FTX began unravelling, Bankman-Fried instructed staff and fellow executives to communicate via the secure messaging app Signal, with messages set to auto delete after a period of time.

Judge Kaplan has suggested Bankman-Fried’s bail could be revoked after prosecutors said he may have tried to tamper with witnesses, Reuters has previously reported.

Prosecutors proposed Bankman-Fried remain free with strict limits on his use of technology.