Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which is headquartered in The Bahamas, and who is accused of defrauding his customers out of billions of dollars was hit with four new charges this week after a new indictment was unsealed.
In total, he now faces 12 counts.
Bankman-Fried, who already faced eight counts, faces conspiracy to commit bank fraud, conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to make unlawful political contributions and defraud the US Federal Election Commission (FEC).
In an indictment unsealed on December 13, 2022 prosecutors for the Southern District of New York allege that Bankman-Fried conspired with others to commit wire fraud, commodities fraud, securities fraud and money laundering.
He was also accused of conspiracy to defraud the United States and violate the campaign finance laws.
The new indictment alleges that Bankman-Fried, who was arrested in The Bahamas last year and extradited to the US, via two straw donors made $100 million in political donations during the 2022 mid term elections in the US.
The indictment alleges that SBF, as he is known, "used the FTX customer funds he misappropriated and caused to be misappropriated to, among other things, support the trading and operations of Alameda, fund acquisitions and venture investments, and finance in substantial part [his] unlawful political influence campaign, which involved flooding the political system with tens of millions of dollars in illegal contributions to both Democrats and Republicans made in the names of others in order to obscure the true source of the money and evade federal election law".
As part of the scheme, it is alleged that "contributions were coordinated to be made in the names of the two FTX straw donors to candidates they did not necessarily support or know".
"These straw donations were instead made for purposes of furthering the political agenda of Samuel Bankman-Fried, while providing him cover to avoid being associated with certain contributions, and concealing that the source of the contributions was in fact Alameda," the indictment said.
It added, "For instance, in or around 2022, Samuel Bankman-Fried and others agreed that he and his co-conspirators should contribute at least a million dollars to a super PAC that was supporting a candidate running for a United States Congressional seat and appeared to be affiliated with pro-LGBTQ issues, and selected CC-1 to be the contributor.
"A political consultant working for Bankman-Fried asked CC-1 to make the contribution and told CC-1, 'In general, you being the center left face of our spending will mean you giving to a lot of woke s*** for transactional purposes.'
"CC-1 expressed discomfort with making the contribution in his name, but agreed there was not anyone 'trusted at FTX [who was] bi/gay' in a position to make the contribution. At the direction of Bankman-Fried and individuals working for him, CC-1 nonetheless contributed to the PAC."
The indictment alleges that Bankman-Fried tried to conceal the scheme and payments.
"While employees at Alameda generally tracked loans to executives, the transfers to Bankman-Fried, CC-1, and CC-2 in the months before the 2022 midterm elections were not recorded on internal Alameda tracking spreadsheets," the indictment said.
"Instead, an internal Alameda spreadsheet noted over $100 million in political contributions, even though FEC records reflect no political contributions by Alameda for the 2022 midterm elections to candidates or PACs.
US prosecutors argued that SBF "perpetuated the campaign finance scheme" to in part "improve his personal standing in Washington, D.C., increase FTX's profile, and curry favor with candidates that could help pass legislation favorable to FTX or Bankman-Fried's personal agenda, including legislation concerning regulatory oversight over FTX and its industry".
Bankman-Fried is on $250 million bond and restricted to his parents' home in California.
He has previously denied the eight charges he faced.
Shortly before he was extradited to the US, SBF's Bahamian lawyer Jerone Roberts told a Bahamian judge that the only request the defense had was that the offenses for which SBF were arrested on are the offenses for which he is tried.
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