Updates into the FTX Investigations

I haven't heard much about the FTX Investigations, so I went looking for updates and found a few.

A third FTX employee has pleaded guilty to criminal charges and is cooperating with investigators.

Third Top FTX Executive Pleads Guilty in Fraud Investigation

Nishad Singh, an FTX founder, pleaded guilty to criminal charges and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors investigating Sam Bankman-Fried.

Nishad Singh, 27, an FTX founder who went on to serve as the company’s director of engineering, pleaded guilty to charges of wire fraud, commodities fraud, securities fraud, money laundering and campaign finance violations. The plea requires him to work with federal prosecutors as they pursue the billion-dollar fraud case against Mr. Bankman-Fried. “Today’s guilty plea underscores once again that the crimes at FTX were vast in scope and consequence,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement. “They rocked our financial markets with a multibillion-dollar fraud. And they corrupted our politics with tens of millions of dollars in illegal straw campaign contributions.”

The figures have come out today:

FTX debtors report $11.6B in claims, $4.8B in assets, with many crypto holdings ‘undetermined’

In a March 17 filing with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, FTX debtors submitted a presentation to the committee of unsecured creditors on its statement of financial affairs, which also detailed the scheduled assets and claims of the company. According to the filing, the West Realm Shires silo — which includes FTX US and Ledger X — FTX.com, Alameda Research and FTX Ventures had roughly $4.8 billion in scheduled assets and $11.6 billion in scheduled claims.

Claims are being made:

FTX inner circle helped itself to $3.2B, liquidators say

In fresh filings in the FTX bankruptcy case, the cryptocurrency-exchange-slash-hedge-fund's liquidators say they've uncovered $3.2 billion (£2.6b) in payments and loans made to disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and his inner circle. The revelation can be found in the schedules of assets and liabilities and statements of financial affairs that FTX and its 101 affiliated debtors filed in court on Wednesday. FTX, under the control of liquidators since November, summarized its findings in a press statement, adding that the $3.2 billion figure doesn't include more than $240 million spent on luxury properties in the Bahamas, any unlawful political or charitable donations, nor any "substantial transfers to non-debtor subsidiaries in the Bahamas and other jurisdictions," the company said.

Influencers are being sued:

YouTube Influencers Slapped With $1 Billion Lawsuit for Promoting FTX

A group of investors who did business with defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX brought a class action lawsuit against multiple internet influencers Wednesday, alleging the content creators pushed unregistered securities on their viewers and followers while promoting the collapsed exchange. The lawsuit seeks over $1 billion in damages and was brought against content creators that reached millions online, including BitBoy Crypto creator Ben Armstrong and finance YouTube creator Graham Stephan, among seven other individuals and the talent management firm Creators Agency.

Of course, the investigations are still in their early phases, so the fun has just begun.

When everyone was screaming get the "Vax" and were also saying get into Crypto my inner voice said "NO!" I should always listen to that voice as it is seldom wrong and has saved me from untold grief IMO.

a reply to: 727Sky

For the sake of the thread, lets not try to draw any correlations between crypto-currency and experimental drugs, or get off topic.

Just a reminder, if you received political contributions from FTX, you have been asked to return those funds or face a possible lawsuit.

Bankrupt FTX exchange asks for its political donations to be returned

In “confidential messages” sent to numerous political figures and action groups, FTX and its debtors are backing up their demand for the return of money donated by Bankman-Fried prior to the company’s bankruptcy in November with the threat of legal action. A press release from FTX dated Sunday states that any politician or group that does not make a voluntary refund faces the prospect of a bankruptcy court lawsuit to recover the money, plus interest accrued since the start of any action.

This is from today:

U.S. Attorney Demands Return of FTX Dirty Money, Including Maine Dems’ $100,000

The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York is demanding that politicians and political committees that received donations from disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried — or his employees — hand over the illicit funds to the U.S. Marshals. The Maine Democratic Party, which received $100,000 from Nishad Singh, the 3rd ranking employee at FTX, has yet to say whether it will comply with the demand.

Two representatives of the Party did not respond to an inquiry from the Maine Wire.

The U.S. Attorney’s demand letter, first reported by Semafor, says those “donations represent the proceeds of Bankman-Fried’s crimes.”

This is from last week:

Senator Wyden Refuses to Return Bankman-Fried Donations after Accepting Money from Family for Over a Decade

Senator Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) has not returned or donated money he received from disgraced former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, Federal Election Commission records show. Bankman-Fried donated the legal maximum of $2,900 to Wyden’s campaign committee, Wyden for Senate, on October 26, 2022, according to records obtained by the Oregon Roundup newsletter.

For his part, Wyden has received money from the Bankman-Fried family for more than a decade. Wyden for Senate received $2,900 from Bankman-Fried’s brother, Gabe Bankman-Fried, in April 2022, according to the report. Sam Bankman-Fried’s father, Joseph Bankman, contributed $2,500 in 2010 — his largest contribution to a federal candidate or committee to date. In February, the New York Times reported that authorities had broadened their investigation into the more than $90 million in campaign contributions that FTX employees and others close to the company gave to congressional candidates and political-action committees to look into whether Sam Bankman-Fried’s brother and father were also involved in the alleged campaign-finance scheme.

This article is from last month, but it does an excelent job of explaining SBF's 4 new charges, one of which is conspiracy to defraud the Federal Election Commission.

New Details Shed Light on FTX’s Campaign Contributions

In a revised indictment, prosecutors said Mr. Bankman-Fried, the FTX founder, had relied on the two former employees and others to serve as straw donors — a person who makes a contribution in someone else’s name to avoid limits on individuals or companies — in his bid to influence politicians in Washington. Federal election law bars a person from donating money to a political campaign by disguising or concealing the source of that money.

Among the new or modified charges: conspiracy to commit bank fraud, conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business and conspiracy to defraud the Federal Election Commission.

Besides Mr. Bankman-Fried, the two largest contributors to political campaigns who worked at FTX were Nishad Singh and Ryan Salame. Neither has been charged with any wrongdoing, according to campaign finance records. Mr. Singh, like Mr. Bankman-Fried, largely contributed to Democratic candidates and Mr. Salame mainly to Republican candidates.

Bankruptcy lawyers for FTX have said that about $90 million in customer money was used to make campaign contributions, and that the lawyers have sent letters to all the recipients of that campaign cash asking that it be returned.

Prosecutors add bribery to list of charges against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried

Federal prosecutors tacked on a 13th criminal charge against Sam Bankman-Fried, accusing the FTX co-founder of bribery in addition to multiple counts of fraud and conspiracy. The new indictment was unsealed by the Southern District Court of New York on Tuesday. Bankman-Fried has already pleaded not guilty to eight criminal counts, and has not yet been arraigned on five others.

Update:

Federal prosecutors tacked on a 13th criminal charge against Sam Bankman-Fried, accusing the FTX co-founder of bribing “one or more” Chinese government officials with $40 million.

In the indictment, prosecutors allege that Bankman-Fried sought to pay off Chinese officials in an effort to unfreeze accounts belonging to his hedge fund, Alameda Research. The accounts, which the Chinese governemnt had frozen in a crackdown on cryptocurrencies, held more than $1 billion of digital assets, prosecutors say. The accounts were released after the payment was transferred in from Alameda’s main trading account to a private cryptocurrency wallet, according to the indictment.

EXCLUSIVE: O’Keefe Media Group’s Upcoming Exposé Will Confirm Financial Fraud Scheme Previously Uncovered By The Gateway Pundit

Peter Bernegger of Election Watch Incorporated told The Gateway Pundit, the investigation is set to show potential illegal money laundering connected to activist group GMMB, the Obama Foundation, Actblue, progressive abortion group Emily’s list, Mark Zuckerberg’s CTCL, the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), and FTX. This information is based on federal and state campaign finance data over a seven-year period. The Gateway Pundit previously reported on money laundering through Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX and the unknown amount of money laundered through the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange for Democratic politicians.

Bernegger told The Gateway Pundit, “It looks like this is the largest money laundering scam in the history of the country.” It involves only extreme liberal candidates and no independents or moderates, said Bernegger. Some of the names provided to The Gateway Pundit were Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Governor Katie Hobbs of Arizona, Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, Congressman Troy Carter of Louisiana, Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, and current Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Janet Protasiewicz.