On CNN Tuesday, reporter Kara Scannell analyzed how federal prosecutors in Manhattan are planning their next moves against Sam Bankman-Fried, the young owner of bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, following the release of 8 charges for financial and election fraud against him.
Bankman-Fried is accused of fraudulently transferring clients' money out of his exchange for his side businesses, like trading firm Alameda Research, leading to the destruction of billions of dollars of wealth — an allegation he has broadly denied.
"[Prosecutors] talked about how quickly this case has come together and is moving forward," said anchor Victor Blackwell.
"That's right," said Scannell. "Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for Manhattan, said this was an all hands on deck situation. They moved swiftly. Remember, FTX filed for bankruptcy, that's when Bankman-Fried was ousted from the company he founded. According to the SEC, they said the scheme began in the inception of the company back in 2019. Multiple schemes alleged here. One of them is that Bankman-Fried allegedly stole billions of dollars out of customer accounts that he transferred to the hedge fund and then used that to fund his personal expenses, like you mentioned, luxury real estate."
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Additionally, said Scannell, Bankman-Fried allegedly "took out $1.3 billion in personal loans and funded political donations," and "that's an area the U.S. Attorney says he believes one of the motivations here is that Bankman-Fried was trying to buy bipartisan influence in Washington to affect public policy."
"The crypto industry is unregulated," said Scannell. "There's a lot of people trying to jockey to influence how that is. The U.S. Attorney saying that was part of the motivation for why he acted. They say this fraud began in the beginning."
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Kara Scannell on Sam Bankman-Fried chargeswww.youtube.com
