FTX founder Samuel Bankman-Fried faces fraud charges

Web Desk:

According to the national media, Samuel Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of crypto-currency exchange FTX and Alameda Research, could face up to 115 years in prison if convicted on all eight counts against him in a federal indictment unsealed Tuesday morning, according to congressional statutory maximum sentencing guidelines.

Federal prosecutors in New York City say that beginning in 2019 Bankman-Fried devised “a scheme and artifice to defraud” FTX’s customers and investors. He illegally diverted their money to cover expenses, debts, and risky trades at his crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research, and to make lavish real estate purchases and large political donations, prosecutors said in a 13-page indictment.

Bankman-Fried, 30, was arrested Monday in the Bahamas at the request of the U.S. government. The charges against him including wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, and conspiracy to commit money laundering, each carry a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, according to a press release from the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

Bankman-Fried’s next court hearing is on the morning of February 8th.