It will be a somber environment at dinner at the Bankman-Fried home in Palo Alto, California, tonight, one would assume. Alleged fraudster San Bankman-Fried, who ran FTX into the ground and is awaiting his fraud trial while staying at his parents’ house, learned that the government wants an even bigger piece of him. He was charged in a superseding indictment of allegedly paying a fortune in bribes to a member of the Chinese Communist party government.
This is a doozy — and will have Bankman facing even more jail time if the justice department can convict him. The indictment said that SBF “authorized and directed a bribe of at least $40 million to one or more Chinese government officials. The purpose of the bribe was to influence and induce one or more Chinese government officials to unfreeze certain Alameda trading accounts containing over $1 billion in cryptocurrency, which had been frozen by Chinese authorities.”
This makes his legal hole much deeper. Several companies under the control of SBF declared bankruptcy last fall — because FTZX had commingled funds with Alameda Research. That’s something that is very much frowned upon.
Court docs related to this new filing state that SBF tried to regain access to assets in order to keep Alameda alive. It was a desperate move that caught up to him. This additional charge is on top of the 12 other felonies he’s facing.
He’s facing 150 years in prison if convicted on all the charges.
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