More than $2bn was transferred to Sam Bankman-Fried from FTX entities, according to bankruptcy court filings made by the new management of cryptocurrency exchange on Wednesday night.
According to a press release describing financial statements filed with the bankruptcy court in Delaware, Bankman-Fried and five members of his inner circle transferred $3.2bn 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 chief executive of FTX appointed at the time of the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings in November, 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.
Bankman-Fried is facing a dozen federal charges related to the collapse of FTX accusing him of securities fraud and looting the platform for personal gain. FTX’s management said on Wednesday the $3.2bn figure did not include $240mn for “luxury property in the Bahamas”, “political and charitable donations”, and “substantial transfers” to subsidiaries. Filings showed Bankman-Fried had received $2.2bn.
A lawyer for Bankman-Fried did not immediately return a request for comment.
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Three FTX insiders who have pleaded guilty and are co-operating with prosecutors — Nishad Singh, Gary Wang and Caroline Ellison — were transferred a total of more than $800mn, according to FTX. Ellison, the former head of Alameda, only received $6mn. She told prosecutors when she pleaded guilty to fraud changes that from 2019 to 2022 Alameda had access to “an unlimited line of credit on FTX.com”.
FTX said that it was investigating possible ways to claw back the transfers to Bankman-Fried and his former colleagues but that “the amount and timing of eventual monetary recoveries cannot be predicted at this time”.
Two other former FTX executives, Ryan Salame and John Samuel Trabucco, were said to have together received more than $100mn.
At one point, FTX was valued at $40bn with Bankman-Fried effectively serving as the face of the crypto industry. He has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges and is detained at his parents California home until a trial that is set to begin in October.
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