SEC charges FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried with fraud

Regulators allege that he used customer funds for trading in Alameda Research.

US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried with "defrauding investors". It was announced after his arrest in the Bahamas. The regulator alleges that the ex-CEO concealed a transfer of FTX customers to his trading firm Alameda Research.

The SEC alleges that since at least May 2019, FTX raised $1.8 billion from equity investors. Bankman-Fried claimed that the exchange was a safe trading platform but the former executive led a fraud “to conceal the diversion of customer funds to his privately-held crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research".

“FTX operated behind a veneer of legitimacy Mr. Bankman-Fried created by, among other things, touting its best-in-class controls, including a proprietary ‘risk engine,’ and FTX’s adherence to specific investor protection principles and detailed terms of service. But as we allege in our complaint, that veneer wasn’t just thin, it was fraudulent”, said Gurbir S. Grewal, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement.

The US Attorney's Office of the Southern District of New York and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) opened a parallel investigation against Sam Bankman-Fried. He is suspected of violating eight points of the law:

• Conspiracy to commit wire fraud on customers;
• Wire fraud on customers; conspiracy to commit wire fraud on lenders;
• Wire fraud on lenders;
• Conspiracy to commit commodities fraud;
• Conspiracy to commit securities fraud;
• Conspiracy to commit money laundering;
• Conspiracy to defraud the United States;
• Violate the campaign finance laws.

CFTC also alleges that Bankman-Fried and other executives took “hundreds of millions of dollars in poorly-documented loans” from Alameda Research and used it to purchase luxury property and political donations.

A day earlier Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas. It happened after he said that he wouldn’t be arrested. Some experts think that, given the extent of the fraud, Bankman-Fried could be facing life in federal prison, without the possibility of supervised release.