FTX Debtors Uncover $3.2B Illegally Paid Out to SBF and His Top Executives

The new management of the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX has reported $3.2 billion made to the founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), and his inner circle, through ‘payments and loans’ before the exchange collapsed.

SBF, the co-founder and former chief executive of FTX, received $2.2 billion. Second to him is the Director of Engineering, Nishad Singh, who received $587 million, followed by Gary Wang, who pocketed $246 million, according to the Schedules of Assets and Liabilities and Statements of Financial Affairs filed Wednesday.

Other listed beneficiaries are Ryan Salame, John Samuel Trabucco, and Caroline Ellison, paid $87 million, $25 million, and $6 million, respectively. The amounts – says the team led by veteran bankruptcy expert John Ray, who led Enron through bankruptcy in the early 2000s – exclude more than $240 million splashed on luxury properties, political, and charitable donations.

Payments reportedly paid through Alameda Research

The payments were made from FTX’s sister company Alameda Research, also founded by SBF, and alleged to have been used to siphon funds from the exchange. In her confession, Ellison, who has since pleaded guilty, told the federal prosecutors that between 2019 and 2022, Alameda had an ‘‘unlimited line of credit on FTX.com.’’

This month, SBF’s circle shrank when Nishad Singh, also among the founders of the failed Bahamas-based crypto exchange, pleaded guilty to six federal charges in the case, including the conspiracy to commit fraud and violation of the campaign finance laws.

On the other hand, SBF has pleaded not guilty to a long list of 12 federal charges ranging from wire fraud and money laundering, to flaunting campaign finance laws. The beneficiaries of the political donations from the once poster boy of crypto were given until the end of February to return the money in recovery efforts seeking to make whole investors facing an estimated $8 billion in losses.

SBF, 31, was arrested in the Bahamas last November in a dramatic event that led to FTX, then ranked among the top exchanges, to seek chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The entrepreneur is currently out on a $250 million bond detained in his parent’s California home, awaiting trial on October 2.