FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was charged with eight criminal counts, including conspiracy and wire fraud for allegedly misusing billions of dollars in customers’ funds before the spectacular collapse of his cryptocurrency empire.
The indictment, unsealed this morning, alleges that Bankman-Fried agreed with others “to defraud customers of FTX.com by misappropriating those customers’ deposits and using those deposits to pay expenses and debts of Alameda Research.”
Bankman-Fried was indicted on eight counts, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud on customer and lenders, wire fraud on customers and lenders, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, securities fraud, money laundering.
However, the final count is perhaps the most notable (and new), charging SBF with conspiracy to defraud the United States and Violate Campaign Finance Laws…
[SBF] willfully and knowingly did combine, conspire, confederate, and agree together and with each other to commit offenses against the United States by engaging in violations of federal law involving the making, receiving, and reporting of a contribution, donation, or expenditure, in violation of Title 52, United States Code, Sections 30109(d) (1) (A) & (0).
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[SBF] did defraud the United States, and an agency thereof, by impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful functions of a department and agency of the United States through deceitful and dishonest means, to wit, the Federal Election Commission’s function to administer federal law concerning source and amount restrictions in federal elections…
Bankman-Fried had been under criminal investigation by US and Bahamian authorities after FTX collapsed last month. The company filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11 after running out of money amid a crypto ‘bank run.’ Prior to the collapse, SBF was worth roughly $26.5 billion, according to Forbes. He was a prominent DC donor, contributing millions of dollars to mostly left-wing causes and Democratic political campaigns.
Read the full charge sheet below:
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