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Bankman-Fried and FTX Execs Received $4.1B in Personal Loans from Alameda
- ekpyrotic 4y ago"Of that total, $1 billion went to Bankman-Fried in the form of a personal loan, while $2.3 billion went to an entity he controls, Paper Bird (Bankman-Fried has told Forbes that owns 75% of the entity, with Wang owning the rest)—so that’s another nearly $1.73 billion at Bankman-Fried’s disposal."
- arthurcolle 4y agoOh my god this guy is going to jail so hard it's wild to watch. It just gets deeper and deeper
- Aleksdev 4y agoIf they catch him. It’s probably a hard process to extradite someone from the Bahamas.
- HWR_14 4y agoIt's not that hard. The US has an extradition treaty. Now, Bahamanian charges may take precedence, but that could just mean getting extradited to the US as he is being released from a Bahamanian prison. It is possible to fight extradition under a few theories, but I don't see how they apply here.
- Aleksdev 4y agoI don’t think his trip to the Bahamas was a coincidence so I think he will use his resources to make it difficult. Also another thing to consider is wether he will stay in the Bahamas if it becomes a problem.
- HWR_14 4y agoHe was based in the Bahamas for their lax securities regulations. He didn't run there when things went bad, he was living in a penthouse there.
- arthurcolle 4y ago*He and his polycule harem of mostly men and Caroline Ellison, someone with zero finance knowledge yet somehow running a multibillion dollar hedge fund
- HWR_14 4y agoThere is no evidence it was a polycule and if it was the fact that they are mostly men would only be brought up for homophobic reasons. He and Caroline Ellison were apparently involved. I have no idea why any of that really matters.
- arthurcolle 4y agoYou're right the wording in my original post was terrible, I apologize and can see that it could appear offensive as written. It doesn't matter and isn't relevant to the core facts that he clearly stole and misappropriated billions of dollars from his company's depositors and engaged in fraud, wire fraud, misuse of funds, self-dealing, and other criminal activities that were explicitly for the purpose of enriching himself. In my opinion, I do want to say that given the more provocative elements of the story, I get a sense that it seems to point to a larger-than-life lifestyle involving people working together and engaging in activities that mixed drugs, sex, and huge amounts of money - not to mention the "conspiratorial" elite connections to political figures and academics that are connected via SBF and Caroline Ellis. Given that so many people were impacted by what are crimes, as can be seen by how ferociously the twitter sphere is picking at all parts of the story - it appears that everything is under judgement, frankly.
- thfuran 4y ago
- tacker2000 4y agoWell it seems the FBI are “mulling” it, but SBF is not impressed: https://thenassauguardian.com/mitchell-on-bankman-fried-extradition-rumors-i-dont-know-anything-about-it/ https://thenassauguardian.com/mitchell-on-bankman-fried-extr...
- arthurcolle 4y agoHe is back in the US according to reports from a few days ago
- ddalex 4y agoWhy, is he that stupid ?!
- spyder 4y agoSBF was just spotted earlier today in what appears to be a grocery store in the bahamas with no security or law enforcement around... https://twitter.com/psyopcop/status/1592977107281666049 https://twitter.com/psyopcop/status/1592977107281666049
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- notch656a 4y agoI wonder how much it costs to buy the worlds best double and a stowaway spot on some relatively uninteresting looking yacht headed out into international waters.
- oarabbus_ 4y agoHe also donated $39M to political campaigns this year, likely winning him some favors from powerful people. Not to say it would protect him from criminal charges; but it's not unfeasible to think it could knock him down a few slots on the extradition priority list.
- iudqnolq 4y agoThis is commonly repeated, but if you game out the incentives it doesn't hold up. Instead, politicians tend to sacrifice the worst criminal donors (see Madoff) to avoid scrutiny of the whole system. A politician wants to maximize future donations. SBF won't donate in the future, and other donors won't stick up for him. So why should politicians continue to deliver? A deep sense of fairness?
- netheril96 4y ago> So why should politicians continue to deliver? If the politicians protect SBF to any extent, they signal to potential donors how useful a donation can be. Some of the rich will start donating or increasing their donations to get the same "get-out-of-jail-or-have-sentence-reduced" card.
- fbdab103 4y agoI think it is a tacit agreement among white-crime - don't get too big. So long as you can stay out of the spotlight, you are probably fine. SBF was evidently way too greedy and far too public. This crash is spreading to the entire crypto economy and has a chance to bring it all down. Someone is going to be the sacrificial lamb, and there are few targets as juicy.
- Ekaros 4y agoAlso on certain level you have to have at least some level of plausible deniability for fraud committed. That is have enough players involved in it. Madoff failed this. And if even fraction of what SBF has done is true. Yep, he is also going away. As this has entered outright territory of fraud.
- misiti3780 4y agoMy friend lives and works there (not at FTX), he said he saw him walking around yesterday without personal security but with federal escorts.
- TheAlchemist 4y agoSo it seems, but I wouldn't bet on it yet. So far, Do Kwon, Mashinsky, Three Arrows Capital, and all those other scammers are not in jail. Not a single one.
- consumer451 4y agoDon't worry if they do get convicted. > Then (Martin) Shkreli addressed Kwon directly, “Hey Do, I just wanted to let you know jail’s not that bad. It’s not the worst thing, you know. So don’t fret if that... I hope it doesn’t happen, but if it does happen it’s not that bad.” https://gizmodo.com/pharma-bro-crypto-do-kwon-terra-luna-1849761877 https://gizmodo.com/pharma-bro-crypto-do-kwon-terra-luna-184...
- jprd 4y agoThat's because he didn't go to real prison.
- consumer451 4y agoAs real as it gets for these folks apparently.
- autotune 4y agoAssuming he doesn't get Epstein'd before then.
- klyrs 4y agoTechnically, that happened in jail
- ransom1538 4y agoThis guy needs to be in Russia yesterday. Edit: Oops. He helped out the Ukrainian government with some type of fiat scheme. Ok, Ukraine is the place to be then.
- TrackerFF 4y agoGood thing both his parents are well-connected lawyers.
- oldgradstudent 4y agoThey are professors of law. His mother published papers on philosophy of law and his father economics, business, and taxation. He needs a street smart criminal lawyer that would tell him to shut up. Maury Levy or Saul Goodman would be best.
- jamesredd 4y agoThis whole story has an odd feeling to it. One has to wonder if a Bankman-Fried, with all of his connections, was the Trojan horse for the public outrage to ban crypto.
- turmeric_root 4y agoAgreed. The crypto industry is widely known for its transparency and trusted institutions, it's strange that this sort of fraud suddenly emerged from nowhere.
- ramish94 4y agoThe more I read about this, the more Im absolutely dumbfounded that Sequoia poured money into them. It took an outside executive 1 day to find out how effed their balance sheet was. Did Sequoia not perform any due diligence?
- nojito 4y agoMost of the partners lost it when SBF mentioned that his dream was to create an app that lets people buy bananas on FTX
- turmeric_root 4y agoI LOVE THIS FOUNDER!!
- blitzar 4y agoI am a 10 out of 10!!
- ilrwbwrkhv 4y agoHow many of that billions flowed into Sequoia pockets too is the question ;)
- notch656a 4y agoExactly lol. Way too many people are getting hung up on how sophisticated VC / funds could have invested in FTX/SBF. We often forget these "investors" want above all an exit plan where they get their money back and more. They couldn't give a shit if the company is run with a balance sheet drawn in mspaint with the spraypaint tool by teenage ponzi schemers as long as they know they get the exit before it topples down.
- JauntTrooper 4y agoOne interesting story that's gotten a little lost in the chaos is that after Sequoia invested in FTX, Bankman-Fried also invested $200M into two Sequoia funds: https://www.ft.com/content/993942cb-1a7e-4689-9d9d-8434d4a74cc5 https://www.ft.com/content/993942cb-1a7e-4689-9d9d-8434d4a74...
- klipklop 4y agoI find it decently unlikely that anything serious happens to Bankman-Fried. There is a zero percent chance the people he helped funnel money into will see a whiff of an investigation. The level of corruption is too high in US finance and politics for that to happen.
- somedude895 4y agoSBF apparently wanted to get in on the Twitter buyout with Elon: https://danluu.com/elon-twitter-texts/#12 https://danluu.com/elon-twitter-texts/#12 https://danluu.com/elon-twitter-texts/#62 https://danluu.com/elon-twitter-texts/#62
- RadixDLT 4y agoCrypto isn’t dead. It’s just getting started.