Achi news desk-
Manhattan29 minutes ago
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Sam Bankman-Fried, the co-founder of the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison. Sam is accused of crypto fraud, stealing customers’ money and misleading investors. Bankman-Fried’s three friends are also guilty in this case. “He made selfish decisions that haunt him every day,” Bankman-Fried said after the sentencing.
In the case, Sam from the Bahamas was arrested in December-2022. After this he was extradited to America. The bank was found guilty of defrauding investors and customers of more than 8 billion dollars ie about 832 billion rupees in November 2023.
This case was considered one of the biggest scandals in American history. There was a huge fall in the US stock market after Bankman-Fried was convicted. FTX was once the second largest crypto exchange in the world.
Sam was arrested in the Bahamas last year.
Order to confiscate more than 11 billion dollars
Sam was sentenced in Manhattan US District Court. United States District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan imposed the sentence, emphasizing concerns about the potential for Bankman-Fried to engage in further wrongdoing in the future.
The judge ordered the forfeiture of more than $11 billion of Bankman-Fried’s money and recommended that she be held in a medium-security prison in the San Francisco area.
Prosecutors sought a sentence of 40-50 years
Prosecutors had sought a sentence of 40 to 50 years, citing Bankman-Fried’s financial crimes, which affected numerous people and organizations around the world. It caused losses of more than $10 billion.
These crimes include misappropriation of funds, defrauding investors, forging documents, illegal political contributions and bribing foreign officials.
What is all the matter?
FTX was the second largest affiliated crypto trading company in the world. FTX Trading Limited has gone bankrupt due to the liquidity crunch due to financial irregularities. According to a report by the Reuters news agency, Sam Bankman-Fried secretly transferred $10 billion worth of customer funds from FTX to his trading arm Alameda Research. Alameda used this fund for trading.
When the company suffered huge losses in trading, crypto publication CoinDesk published a report on a leaked balance sheet. After this report came out, turmoil broke out at FTX. FTX received an estimated $6 billion worth of withdrawal requests in three days. FTX was in a liquidity crunch due to the sudden influx of withdrawal requests, meaning it was not in a position to process the withdrawal requests. After this he filed for bankruptcy.
Bankman-Fried’s net worth becomes zero
After the FTX irregularities came to light, Fried’s wealth dropped from $16 billion to zero in just a few days. At one point Sam Bankman’s net worth reached $26 billion. The drop in net worth is due to the bankruptcy of FTX Trading Limited following the liquidity crunch.
Who is Sam Bankman-Fried?
Bankman-Fried was once one of the biggest names in the crypto industry. Bankman-Fried, educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, founded crypto exchange startup FTX in 2019. Within no time, this startup became the world’s second largest crypto exchange platform. However, within 2 years he was accused of a scam, later considered one of the biggest scams in American history.
“A lot of people feel very disappointed, I’m sorry for that,” Bankman-Fried, 32, said in the sentence. I’m sorry for what happened every step of the way. There are some things I should have done and some things I shouldn’t have done.
“We are heartbroken and will continue to fight for our son,” the Bankman-Fried family said in a statement. Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, both law professors at Stanford, were in court for the sentencing hearing.
