Illustration: The Verge
About twelve hours after we learned authorities in the Bahamas have arrested FTX co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealed the first of multiple sets of criminal charges he’ll face.
The SEC complaint accuses Bankman-Fried of executing a “years-long fraud” while diverting customers’ funds from FTX to his crypto trading firm, Alameda Research. The charges specifically cite the more than $1.8 billion FTX received from equity investors since 2019, which includes $1.1 billion from investors in the US.
According to the charges, FTX was a fraud from the very beginning, claiming, “From the inception of FTX, Bankman-Fried diverted FTX customer funds to Alameda, and he continued…