The bad news is linked for Samuel Bankman-Fried, with new damning testimonies.
And they don’t come from just anyone, since according to former SBF companion Caroline Ellison, billions of dollars in secret loans had been granted to the ex-crypto guru and several executives of FTX.
Alameda and FTX, the fusional story
And once again, it is the symbiosis between the Alameda investment fund and FTX that is indicted. According to his former boss Caroline Ellison, who is now cooperating with American justice in order to avoid a prison sentence of up to 110 years, billions of dollars in loans were granted secretly by Alameda to FTX boss Samuel Bankman -Fried, and to several senior exchange executives.
” We prepared certain quarterly balance sheets that hid the extent of Alameda’s borrowings and the billions of dollars in loans Alameda had made to FTX executives and related parties “, she thus affirmed in a hearing of December 19, the transcript of which has just been made public.
This document was kept secret until then so as not to thwart the efforts of American justice in its desire to extradite Sam Bankman-Fried, currently on bail for a pharaonic amount of 250 million dollars.
Alameda had access to FTX client funds
And the discoveries don’t stop there. Caroline Ellison also explained to investigators that Alameda had the ability to borrow unlimited amounts from FTX. And this, through a secret agreement made with the boss of the platform… Sam Bankman-Fried.
What shake the defense of the ex-billionaire, who had explained the bankruptcy of theexchange of cryptocurrency by the gross incompetence of its management team. However, through Caroline Ellison, we learn that SBF would have simply opened the funds of its clients to a hedge fund, without their agreement or quite simply without even having informed them.
And the accusation has all the more weight since Gary Wang, the second colleague of Samuel Bankman-Fried to be charged, also offered problematic elements. He would indeed have been asked to change FTX’s codes so that Alameda would obtain special privileges on the platform. Privileges whose existence had been denied at the time…
Source : Reuters
8