FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried accused of using US$100 million in stolen funds for political donations
- Prosecutors said Bankman-Fried directed two FTX executives to evade contribution limits by donating to Democrats and Republicans, and to hide where the money came from
- The 31-year-old faces seven counts of conspiracy and fraud over the cryptocurrency exchange’s collapse
Sam Bankman-Fried used money he stole from customers of his FTX cryptocurrency exchange to make more than US$100 million in political campaign contributions before the 2022 US midterm elections, federal prosecutors said on Monday.
An amended indictment accused the 31-year-old former billionaire of directing two FTX executives to evade contribution limits by donating to Democrats and Republicans, and to conceal where the money came from.
“He leveraged this influence, in turn, to lobby Congress and regulatory agencies to support legislation and regulation he believed would make it easier for FTX to continue to accept customer deposits and grow,” the indictment said.
Bankman-Fried faces seven counts of conspiracy and fraud over FTX’s collapse, though the indictment no longer includes conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws as a separate count.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said last month they would drop that charge after the Bahamas, where FTX was based and where Bankman-Fried was arrested in December 2022, said it never intended to extradite him on that count.