Bankman-Fried’s charges have been expanded in the latest indictment filed by federal prosecutors.
Federal prosecutors have announced a new indictment against Sam Bankman-Fried with four additional criminal counts.
He document alleging these new charges begin with the assertion that “From at least about 2019, up to and including November 2022, Samuel Bankman-Fried, aka ‘SBF,’ the defendant, corrupted the operations of cryptocurrency companies he founded and controlled.”
In addition to the original charges SBF faces, prosecutors allege he is also guilty of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitter. Previously, the US District Court for the Southern District of New York indicted SBF on all of the following charges, including:
- Conspiracy to commit wire fraud to customers
- Wire fraud to customers
- Conspiracy to commit wire fraud with lenders
- Wire Fraud at Lenders
- Conspiracy to commit commodity fraud
- Conspiracy to commit securities fraud
- Conspiracy to commit money laundering
- And conspiracy to defraud the United States and violate the Campaign Finance Laws.
These charges followed his arrest in December in the Bahamas, following the impossibly large failure of the FTX trading empire. The industry is still reeling from both the commercial shock and the regulatory scrutiny that has followed since.
Contrary to Bankman-Fried’s promises to FTX clients that the exchange would protect their interests and segregate their assets, Bankman-Fried routinely leveraged the assets of FTX clients to provide interest-free capital for their private expenses and those of Alameda, and in the process exposed FTX customers to massive undisclosed risk,” the document with the new charges alleges. “Furthermore, while Bankman-Fried publicly asserted that FTX operated independently of Alameda’s cryptocurrency trading and investments in other companies, by design the reality was otherwise.”
In addition to the functional issues with FTX, the alleged illegal donations are now being further detailed, with the indictment examining how SBF used others to contribute to political movements it did not want itself or its business entities to be associated with.
“Bankman-Fried caused substantial contributions to be made in support of candidates from both major political parties and across the political spectrum,” the document alleges. “Bankman-Fried, however, did not want to be known as a supporter of the left, nor did he want his name to be associated publicly with Republican candidates. In those cases where he wanted to obscure his association with certain contributions, Bankman-Fried and others conspired and caused those contributions to be made on behalf of [FTX executives] CC-1 and CC-2.
As part of this scheme, contributions were arranged on behalf of the two fictitious FTX donors to candidates they did not necessarily support or know of. Instead, these bogus donations were made in order to further SBF’s political agenda while providing cover to avoid being associated with certain contributions and concealing that the source of the contributions was, in fact, Alameda.”
The highly anticipated Bankman-Fried trial is scheduled for October 2023.
