Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) received approximately $2.2 billion from FTX while he was the CEO at the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange, the Financial Times reported Thursday, citing court filings made by new management. The report stated that the funds were being transferred to SBF through FTX entities.
SBF and Inner Circle Received $3.2B
More than $3.2 billion in total was transferred to SBF and five members of his inner circle’s accounts through “payments and loans,” with the majority of the funding coming from FTX’s sister company Alameda Research.
The report said the transfers did not include $240 million spent to purchase “luxury property in the Bahamas,” “political and charitable donations,” and “substantial transfers” to subsidiaries.
Former FTX and Alameda executives, including Nishad Singh, Gary Wang, and Caroline Ellison, received a total of more than $800 million. However, Ellison received only $6 million out of that sum. She previously revealed in her guilty plea that Alameda had access to “an unlimited line of credit” on FTX from 2019 to 2022.
Two other former FTX executives, Ryan Salame and John Samuel Trabucco, collectively received roughly $100 million, according to the report.
New managers at FTX, helmed by restructuring officer John J. Ray III, said they are seeking possible ways to claw back the transfers to SBF and his close associates but that “the amount and timing of eventual monetary recoveries cannot be predicted at this time.”
$8.9B Missing
The new management recently revealed that approximately $8.9 billion worth of customer funds at the exchange have been unaccounted for and have gone missing. The managers identified around $2.7 billion worth of customer assets against $11.6 billion of balances outstanding on customer accounts.
SBF and his closest associates are currently facing federal fraud charges for allegedly misusing customer accounts at FTX to fund risky bets at Alameda, enrich themselves, and buy influence in the U.S. SBF has pleaded not guilty to fraud charges while his fellow former executives, Ellison, Wang, and Singh have admitted wrongdoing and are cooperating with federal prosecutors.
