- FTX lawyers said that founder Sam Bankman-Fried and other executives used customer cash to fund personal their lifestyles.
- Bankman-Fried and members of his inner circle like Caroline Elisson, and Nishad Singh spent $1 billion funding stock buys, property purchases, and fraudulent loans.
- SBF is facing criminal charges from the DOJ while Ellison and Singh agreed to plea deals in America’s largest fraud case.
FTX Trading Ltd filed a lawsuit against founder Sam Bankman-Fried and other company executives, seeking to recover $1 billion of customer cash misused for personal benefits, Reuters reported.
Lawyers submitted court documents on July 20 claiming that the defendants stole customer assets to fund political donations, loans to executives, and luxury apartments. The suit named former CEO Bankman-Fried, ex-Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison, co-founder Gary Wang and former Lead Engineer Nishad Singh as defendants.
According to lawyers of the bankrupt crypto exchange, Singh received $447 million in a supposed loan from FTX and Alameda but there was no intention to repay.
The defendants received at least $725 million in equity for shares that were never paid for, per the filing. Lawyers also alleged that Bankman-Fried’s brother Gabriel planned to acquire the island nation of Nauru.
Furthermore, the beleaguered exchange sent tens of millions for real estate purchases and legal fees to SBF’s dad, Allen Joe Bankman. Separate lawsuits seek to recover $71.5 million and $700 million respectively spent by SBF for personal aggrandizement prior to FTX’s collapse in November 2022.
FTX Debacle Continues
In other related news, the U.S. Department of Justice asked a court to ban “extrajudicial statements” made by defendants and witnesses after FTX founder Bankman-Fried reportedly leaked Caroline Ellison’s private diary to the press.
Ellison who led SBF’s hedge fund and FTX sister firm Alameda Research agreed to a plea deal with federal prosecutors. Singh was also in talks with DOJ attorneys over a possible deal.
While bankruptcy administrators track down stolen customer cash and prosecutors levy charges against former company leadership for wrongdoing, crypto observers remain puzzled about the whereabouts of known FTX executive Sam Trabucco and his noticeable omission from court proceedings.