Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, has been charged with using stolen customer funds to amass a sum exceeding $100 million in campaign contributions leading up to the 2022 US midterm elections.
The new indictment, as per The Guardian, brings forth serious charges against the once-renowned 31-year-old billionaire. The FTX founder now faces seven counts of conspiracy and fraud linked to the collapse of the FTX exchange. Previously, Bankman-Fried had already entered a plea of not guilty.
At the core of this high-stakes legal drama is the allegation that Bankman-Fried misappropriated customer funds, diverting them towards a colossal $100 million fund aimed at influencing the 2022 US midterm elections.
It claims that he deliberately obscured the origin of the donations by arranging for funds from FTX’s affiliated trading company, Alameda, which are then transferred to personal bank accounts held by FTX executives. They then subsequently made donations under their own names, which enabled them to sidestep regulations regarding specific categories of political contributions.
It says that Bankman-Fried “leveraged this influence, in turn, to lobby Congress and regulatory agencies to support legislation and regulation he believed would make it easier for FTX to continue to accept customer deposits and grow, which would, in turn, allow the misappropriation scheme to continue. Bankman-Fried also used these connections with politicians and government officials to falsely burnish the public image of FTX as a legitimate exchange.”
Initially, the US attorney’s office in Manhattan had charged Bankman-Fried with violating US campaign finance laws. However, the charge was dropped in late July.
