Where did FTX customer money go? Firm says Bankman-Fried took $2.2 billion
Sam Bankman-Fried received about $2.2 billion in payments and loans from FTX entities, mainly from Alameda Research, FTX and its affiliated debtors said yesterday. Bankman-Fried's fellow executives received another $951 million combined, including $839 million to three executives who already pleaded guilty to fraud, FTX and its debtors said in a press release describing a series of filings made in US Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.
As summarized by the Financial Times, "Bankman-Fried and five members of his inner circle transferred $3.2 billion in total to their personal accounts in the form of 'payments and loans,' the funds primarily coming from Alameda Research, a crypto trading hedge fund affiliated with FTX." John Ray, the new CEO leading FTX through bankruptcy proceedings, "has been seeking to identify the location of cryptocurrency and other assets that can be eventually returned to the millions of FTX customers whose accounts have been frozen since its collapse," the Financial Times noted.
Bankman-Fried, who faces criminal fraud and conspiracy charges, is accused of improperly diverting billions of dollars of FTX customer funds to Alameda. The other payment and loan totals described by FTX yesterday were $587 million to Nishad Singh, $246 million to Zixiao "Gary" Wang, $87 million to Ryan Salame, $25 million to John Samuel Trabucco, and $6 million to Caroline Ellison. Singh, Wang, and Ellison have pleaded guilty to criminal fraud charges and are cooperating with government prosecutors.
