Crime

More than 100 bitcoins previously held in inaccessible virtual wallets linked to defunct cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX have been transferred four years after the death of the company’s founder led to its collapse.

It is not clear who moved the 104 bitcoins this month, worth approximately $2.4-million, nor how anyone could do so. Bankruptcy trustee Ernst & Young Inc. said in 2019 that it was not able to access the wallets, meaning the funds could not be recovered to help compensate users who lost money when the exchange went out of business.

The girlfriend of disgraced FTX founder Samuel Bankman-Fried reportedly cooperated with federal officials, it was revealed, shortly after he was arrested in the Bahamas in connection with the collapse of his crypto empire.

Former U.S. attorney Marc Litt, who was involved in prosecuting Bernie Madoff, joined “Fox & Friends Weekend” Sunday to discuss the report alleging Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison worked with officials in relation to the charges.

“It wouldn’t surprise me at all,” Litt told Will Cain regarding the report. “She was the CEO of a company that seems to be intimately involved in the alleged fraud, and she’s… in the cross-hairs of the government… and she’s got a choice to make.”

Federal prosecutors investigating the collapse of FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried have reached out to Democratic and Republican campaigns and organizations for information on political donations the company founder and two former executives made, according to a report.

At first glance, Sam Bankman-Fried bears little resemblance to Bernie Madoff. One is a smartly-suited, grey-haired financial titan with a 40-year career on Wall Street, and the other a 30-year-old millennial king of crypto in shorts and T-shirt.

But almost 14 years to the day since Madoff was arrested and charged with fraud in New York for orchestrating a long-running pyramid scheme, the FTX crypto scandal is being compared to Madoff’s criminal enterprise.

Diana Henriques, a financial historian and the author of The Wizard of Lies, a book delving into Madoff’s $64bn (£53bn) scheme, says the similarities between Bankman-Fried – or SBF as he is known – and the Wall Street investment manager are “striking”.

In case you missed it … Sam Bankman-Fried reverses decision to fight extradition to US

As revelations emerge about the vast scope of the FTX debacle, the inevitable comparisons are being made between its disgraced chief executive Sam Bankman-Fried and legendary Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff.

To be sure, both scoundrels were adept at parting fools and their money – lots of it. But Mr. Madoff’s victims might elicit some sympathy for being taken in by his carefully crafted façade of respectability. Mr. Bankman-Fried’s willing dupes should get no such leniency. They should have seen trouble coming.

Mr. Bankman-Fried’s venture had more red flags than a Beijing military parade, the biggest one being that head office in the Bahamas. There is perhaps no redder flag than a corporate headquarters in a sketchy tax haven with a long history of dirty dealing that has been called out by global watchdogs.

Dec 17 (Reuters) – Former FTX Chief Executive Sam Bankman-Fried is expected to appear in court in the Bahamas on Monday to reverse his decision to contest extradition to the United States, where he faces fraud charges, a person familiar with the matter said on Saturday.

FTX investor and former paid spokesperson Kevin O’Leary refused to condemn Sam Bankman-Fried or classify the doomed company’s meltdown as fraud during a tense television appearance on Friday.

O’Leary, one of the sharks on the hit show “Shark Tank,” provided a toothless response when pressed to point a finger at who’s to blame.

“I don’t have all the facts,” he told the hosts of CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”