Introduction
As a corollary to the bankruptcy of FTX—a crypto exchange—new accusations revolving around a $100 million scandal this company’s CEO and his family are facing have emerged.
Emails Reveal Involvement
According to the leaked financial reports of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), personal emails contain the exact details of how the Bankmans deceive people and who will they be using as pawns in those funds. Those were allegedly made when FTX customer assets and accounts were misused.
Joe Bankman’s Involvement
Attention for the first time zeroed in on the fact that Joe Bankman is Sam’s dad, but the most thrilling detail is related to his period of service as a financial advisor of FTX, according to the docs. He was teaching law at Stanford University but somehow got involved in a wire-donor scheme, now classified as a crime. A straw-donor scheme is a fraudulent practice that someone adopts when he/she borrows funds from and makes a political donation in his/her own name. However, a representative of Joe commented to the WSJ that according to his knowledge there are no allegations of any campaign finance violations. Just like that, in the emails revealed by WSJ, Mr. Bankman was clearly involved in the prosecution of the errant and was being involved in the act of funding them. The affidavit was subsequently denied by Joe who through his attorney and his spokespeople that he knew nothing about the campaign finance violations but, the evidence from the leak to the Wall Street Journal suggests that Mr. Bankman was acting as one of the conduits for the suspicious funding.
Others Involved
According to accusations, the funds were channeled through Mind the Gap, whose co-founder is Barbara Fried and which is a political action committee (PAC). They were used to fund various progressive groups and projects. On the other hand, his brother, Gabriel Bankman-Fried, has transferred these reserves to the project for pandemic prevention that is using the FTX funds. The concerted effort was aimed at bringing about changes in the 2022 election through supporting various political groups and activities.
David Mason, former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, was the one who explicitly mentioned that the information in the emails is overwhelming. Mason implied that Joe Bankman´s intervention caused the company incurring huge legal liabilities under election finance laws, saying there is “strong evidence” of him knowing and partaking in the illicit operations.
FTX Executives Implicated
Furthermore, the scandal implicates former FTX executives. Last May 28th, Ryan Salame, once a co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets, was sentenced to prison after he pleaded guilty and, finally, after living an incredibly free life for seven and a half years, endured a 7.5-year prison sentence which was the total of all the things he did including getting a prison sentence for conspiracy to operate an unresponsible money transmitting business and for the campaign finance fraud issue. This happened after Caroline Ellison and Nishad Singh, former executives, had already pled guilty and were in pre-trial detention for the period of conviction.
Salame’s long-term jail time was a shock to most people after the prosecution had only asked for 7 years for Salame. In the future “if SBF’s family will be involved, the credibility of the result may be in doubt.
Ongoing Legal Ramifications
Through the fact that Sam´s relatives and former employees were involved in the fraudulent scheme, we came to know that the legal costs of the infringement of financial regulations at FTX do still continue. SBF was convicted of a crime for which the penalty is 25 years behind bars.
