Founder of Failed Crypto Exchange FTX Charged With Defrauding US Election Commission

NEW YORK (Sputnik) - Samuel Bankman-Fried, founder of the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has been charged with making unlawful political contributions and with trying to defraud the US Federal Elections Commission, a court document showed on Thursday.

Bankman-Fried, already facing eight previous counts of charges that he misused investors’ money in his hedge fund Alameda for activities that went beyond the running of FTX, now faces four additional charges, including that of violating US political campaign finance laws, according to the document.

Bankman-Fried was involved in a "conspiracy to make unlawful political contributions and defraud the FEC", the latest indictments filed against him in a New York court said.

"[The defendant] used the FTX customer funds he misappropriated and caused to be misappropriated to, among other things, support the trading and operations of Alameda, fund acquisitions and venture investments, and finance in substantial part Bankman-Fried’s unlawful political influence campaign, which involved flooding the political system with tens of millions of dollars in illegal contributions to both Democrats and Republicans made in the names of others in order to obscure the true source of the money and evade federal election law," it said.

The document laid out in detail Bankman-Fried’s allegedly fraudulent conduct related to FTX and Alameda, showing how he operated an illegal donor scheme as he moved customers' funds to run a $40 million political influence campaign.

"To avoid certain contributions being publicly reported in his name, Bankman-Fried conspired to and did have certain political contributions made in the names of two other FTX executives," the document said.

The FTX collapse foresaw the meltdown of the cryptocurrency market, wiping out at one point some $1.3 trillion from digital currencies, including Bitcoin. The FTX collapse also led to bankruptcy filings by other branded names in crypto such as the Celsius Network and the lending unit of Genesis Global Capital.