Crime

Disgraced crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried’s relatives reportedly called the rodent-infested Bahamas prison where he is being held and asked if he could get vegan meals.

The founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX — who was charged this week with multiple financial crimes — has his own room in the maximum-security section of the Bahamas lockup that is known to be crawling with rats and maggots, unnamed sources told Bloomberg.

Bankman-Fried’s relatives called the Fox Hill jail in Nassau Tuesday night to request that vegan meals be provided to him, a source told the outlet.

When alleged crypto-fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried finished testifying at a congressional hearing last December, Democrat Maxine Waters, chair of the House Financial Services Committee, blew him a kiss as he walked by.

And why not, since the shambolic 30-year-old former multibillionaire is acknowledged to be the second-biggest donor to the Democrats, after George Soros.

He helped bankroll Joe Biden into the White House and had promised to donate $1 billion to help the party win the 2024 presidential election.

Kevin O’Leary was in Miami having lunch with the business team of Circle Internet Financial LLC, a Boston-based technology company that had come up with USDC, the so-called stablecoin cryptocurrency pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar. It was the Bitcoin 2021 Conference held in early June that year, a sold-out event charging US$1,499 for a standard pass and about US$21,000 for an exclusive “Whale Pass,” which provided attendees with access to extra speakers, parties, private areas and bars.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s reported ex-girlfriend was likely among the first people to turn on him and help prosecutors build their fast-moving fraud case in the epic, $8 billion-plus collapse of his FTX cryptocurrency exchange, a former US government lawyer said Wednesday,

Caroline Ellison, 28, is a key figure in the case as she was at one time CEO of the Alameda Research hedge fund — which authorities claim received billions of dollars that Bankman-Fried, 30, diverted from FTX.

“She would have among the greatest incentives to cooperate, as it was seeming likely that in his effort to exculpate himself, Bankman-Fried would try to finger her,” former Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer Howard Fischer told The Post.

Oh Sammy you better get used to your new cell mate Bubba.

Caroline Ellison Was Alameda’s CEO, But Officials Say Sam Bankman-Fried Ran It

When Sam Bankman-Fried told his side of the story of what happened to FTX, the crypto exchange that went bankrupt on his watch last month, he often pointed the finger elsewhere. His favorite target was Alameda Research, the trading firm where Caroline Ellison was chief executive.

This week, the U.S. government pointed back at Mr. Bankman-Fried.

Update – This is new info – Bahamian authorities were tipped off by top Bankman-Fried associate

One of Sam Bankman-Fried’s close associates told Bahamian regulators in the days before FTX collapsed that the now-disgraced founder had likely funnelled customer money to his hedge fund, a move that helped accelerate the 30-year-old’s downfall.

Ryan Salame, co-chief executive of FTX’s Bahamas operating entity, informed the country’s securities commission on November 9 that FTX customer funds had been used to cover losses at Alameda Research, according to Bahamian court records(opens a new window).

Salame identified Bankman-Fried and two other FTX executives as potentially being responsible, an allegation that triggered a referral to the Bahamas police and ultimately the appointment of liquidators.

So it looks like Caroline was not the first but among the first. I wonder if she made the call or if someone came knocking with some friendly advice.

Fallen crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried is being held in a Bahamian jail known to be overrun with rats and maggots — one so bad a warden has called it “not fit for humanity.”

The accused fraudster, once estimated to be worth $32 billion, is being held in the island’s only correctional facility, Fox Hill Prison, until at least Feb. 8 after failing to get bail while fighting against extradition to the US.

The jail was the focus of a damning report last year by the US Department of State into possible human rights violations, including violence and abuse by staff.

Mini-Madoff is in for some serious culture shock.

The spectacular rise and fall of Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the failed crypto exchange FTX, came full circle on Monday, with his arrest in the Bahamas at the request of U.S. authorities, followed by the S.E.C. filing its own charges on Tuesday.

The Times reports that federal prosecutors in Manhattan, who are seeking his extradition, will charge Mr. Bankman-Fried with wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy and money laundering. A trial could start late next year.

“Sam Bankman-Fried built a house of cards on a foundation of deception while telling investors that it was one of the safest buildings in crypto,” Gary Gensler, the S.E.C.’s chair, said in a statement. His agency has charged S.B.F., as the entrepreneur is known, with defrauding investors in FTX out of $1.8 billion, including $1.1 billion from U.S. entities. A big part of the fraud, it alleges, was keeping backers in the dark about “the undisclosed diversion of FTX customers’ funds” to the exchange’s trading affiliate, Alameda Research.

Teeters? More like fell down, burned up and sank into the swamp. But being a well connected Dem the swamp may be his salvation.

Yesterday, Sam Bankman-Fried (known as SBF), the former CEO of the collapsed cryptocurrency giant FTX, was arrested in the Bahamas and is being held in Bahamian jail pending his extradition to the United States. In an indictment unsealed this morning, SBF was charged with mail and wire fraud, money laundering, and other crimes related to a scheme measured in the billions of dollars.

If convicted on all charges, he faces a sentence along the same lines as the 150 years imposed on the notorious Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff.

For weeks, the Justice Department did not have SBF arrested in the Bahamas, despite widespread public clamor for him to be immediately jailed. There are three reasons why the DOJ waited.

This is the best explanation I have found of the charges and potential consequences the entitled little crook is facing.

Sam Bankman-Fried claims he’s victim of anti-Semitism and that his failed crypto exchange is SOLVENT and can cover $1.8B losses

Bankman-Fried was due to give testimony today about his doomed platform before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services.

Forbes obtained a written copy of the testimony he was expected to give.

It began: ‘I would like to start by formally stating under oath: I f****d up. I know that it doesn’t mean much to say that I’m sorry. And so I’m dedicating as much of myself as I can to do the right thing by customers.

‘When all is said and done, I’ll judge myself primarily by one metric: whether I have eventually been able to make customers whole. If I fail our customers in this regard, I have failed myself.’

But over the next 18 pages, he blamed anti-Semitism, lawyers and even his own ex-girlfriend for the breakdown of his company. 

They were one part of a “Chinese harem polyamory” group set up in the Bahamas that mixed sex, pills and crypto. Now Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison, the two executives at the center of the collapse of cryptocurrency firm FTX, appear to be turning on each other.

After Bankman-Fried suggested she might be to blame for a missing $8 billion in customer money, Ellison could be signaling she’s willing to flip on her old boyfriend with the hiring of the law firm Wilmer Hale.

Top white-collar attorneys point out that Wilmer Hale is among the most politically connected white-collar law firms in the country. It has a reputation for cutting deals with the Manhattan US Attorney’s office, itself the country’s premier prosecutor of business-related crimes.

She’s rollin.

Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, both professors at Stanford Law, have remained in the Bahamas with their son since his firm’s collapse

Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the collapsed exchange FTX, always stood apart from other cryptocurrency entrepreneurs, and it wasn’t for his baggy shorts or taste in videogames.

Both his parents, as Mr. Bankman-Fried would note in meetings with Washington policy makers, are professors at Stanford Law School. Their reputations were a credential to their son as he grew his crypto empire, even to those inclined to see little value in the industry.

Well connected criminals.