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Scandal-plagued FTX mogul Sam Bankman-Fried took billions of dollars out of the cryptocurrency company to spend on swanky real estate, personal needs for himself and others and countless political donations, federal documents indicated.
“It’s taking money from customers,” New FTX CEO John Ray told Congress during a scathing review of the company he took over from Bankman-Fried. “and using it for our own purposes.”
Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas Monday and is facing federal charges in the US weeks after FTX filed for bankruptcy.
Funds from FTX included more than $8 billion that went toward affiliated trading firm Alameda Research that Bankman-Fried founded in 2017 and ran with Caroline Ellison, according to the SEC complaint. Between $1 billion and $2 billion of those funds are missing, Reuters reported.
The transferred funds from FTX to the hedge fund Alameda were not only used for Alameda’s proprietary trading but to fund loans to Bankman-Fried and other FTX executives, the SEC filing states.
