Sam Bankman-Fried now charged with unlawful political contributions

Washington, Feb 24

Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), former CEO of collapsed crypto exchange FTX, has now been charged with four additional counts of fraud, including unlawful political contributions leading up to the 2022 midterm elections.

According to a new filing from the Southern District of New York attorney's office, Bankman-Fried used the FTX customer funds he misappropriated, and was used in the unlawful political influence campaign, which involved flooding the political system with tens of millions of dollars in illegal contributions to both Democrats and Republicans.

He now faces allegations that he led a fraud designed to hide from FTX investors the fact that their funds were being redirected to SBF's Alameda crypto hedge fund.

"As he used Alameda to siphon off FTX's customer funds and deploy them for political causes, SBF became one of the largest publicly reported political donors for the 2022 midterm elections," according to the new filings.

But his effort to influence politics did not stop there.

"To avoid certain contributions being publicly reported in his name, he conspired to and did have certain political contributions made in the names of two other FTX executives. Those contributions were made directly to candidates in the names of those FTX executives, but with FTX and Alameda funds," the filing revealed.

With these new charges, Bankman-Fried has been accused of defrauding the Federal Elections Committee (FEC), along with additional counts related to wire fraud and money laundering.

Bankman-Fried is currently living with his parents in California on a $250 million bail.

He was arrested in the Bahamas on December 12 and extradited to the US on December 21.

Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to fraud and money laundering charges.