FTX Estate Sues Parents of Sam Bankman-Fried for Allegedly Draining Funds From Collapsed Crypto Exchange

The bankruptcy estate of FTX's former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, has reportedly filed a lawsuit against the parental guardians, accusing them of misappropriating funds within the crypto exchange.

In a recent report by the Financial Times, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried are currently facing legal action from the FTX estate. They are accused of diverting funds from the now-defunct exchange.

According to the prosecutors, Bankman had been referring to the FTX Group as a "family business" as far back as 2018, a term he repeatedly used. However, the legal representatives of Bankman and Fried have countered this allegation, describing it as a "risky attempt to exert pressure on Joe and Barbara and undermine the integrity of the jury process just days before their child's trial commences."

These allegations are the latest in a series of indications pointing towards the illicit movement of funds through the former cryptocurrency exchange. In a recent court filing, it was revealed that Bankman-Fried had been accumulating substantial sums of cash payments from FTX, starting from January 2022 and continuing until October of the same year, just one month before the exchange's collapse.

Furthermore, documents also disclose that the former CEO of FTX had received cash payments totaling $200 million on two separate occasions. Additional court records indicate that FTX had disbursed $2.513 million for the purchase of a yacht belonging to Sam Trabucco, the former co-CEO of FTX's trading division, Alameda Research. This transaction took place less than six months before Trabucco's departure from the company.

In parallel, Caroline Ellison, a former co-CEO of Alameda, received cash payments totaling $3.5 million in September 2022. Several other former FTX executives, namely Gary Wang, Ryan Salame, Nishad Singh, and Jonathan Cheesman, also received multimillion-dollar cash payments from the insolvent cryptocurrency exchange.

Sep 20, 2023