NEW YORK, November 2, 2023: A jury in Manhattan found, Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, guilty on all seven criminal fraud counts against him.1
The trial is scheduled for March 28, 2024.2
The verdict came after a four-week trial in which prosecutors presented evidence that Bankman-Fried had defrauded investors and customers of FTX and its sister hedge fund, Alameda Research.
Bankman-Fried was charged with wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, securities fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, commodities fraud, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, and money laundering.
He faces up to 115 years in prison.
Bankman-Fried’s indictment is a major blow to the fraudsters in the cryptocurrency fraud industry, which has been plagued by fraud and scams in recent years.
“Sam Bankman-Fried perpetrated one of the biggest financial frauds in American history. A multi-billion dollar scheme designed to make him the king of crypto,” United States New York Southern District Attorney Damen Williams, said speaking to the media. 3
“The cryptocurrency industry might be new, the players like Sam Bankman Fried might be new but this kind of fraud, this kind of corruption is as old as time and we have no patience for it,” he said.
“The ruling is a warning to every single fraudster out there who thinks that they’re untouchable or that their crimes are too complex for us to catch or that they’re too powerful for us to prosecute or that they could try to talk their way out of it when they get caught those folks should think again,”
“We will have enough handcuffs for all of them now,” he said.
- New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/11/02/business/sam-bankman-fried-trial[↩]
- CNN: https://edition.cnn.com/business/live-news/sam-bankman-fried-trial-verdict-11-2-23/index.html[↩]
- NBC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gkt4Sl3qo8[↩]
