Sam Bankman-Fried, the Co-Founder and former CEO of crypto exchange, FTX, and trading firm, Alameda Research, was sentenced to 25 years in prison by Southern District of New York (SDNY) Judge, Lewis Kaplan.
“It is the judgment of the court that you are sentenced to 240 months then consecutive 60 [etc] for a total of 300 months [25 years],” said the Judge on Thursday according to a thread on X by Inner City Press.
“When not lying, he was evasive, hair splitting, trying to get the prosecutors to rephrase questions for him,” Kaplan said.
“I’ve been doing this job for close for 30 years. I’ve never seen a performance like that.”
OK – Sam Bankman-Fried sentencing has arrived, Inner City Press wrote the book (Crypto Criminal https://t.co/ExLjXQJArQ and will live tweet, thread below pic.twitter.com/Mhmb2ypF1X
— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) March 28, 2024
The sentence came about five months after he was found guilty on all seven counts related to fraud and money laundering during his trial, which meant potentially 110 years behind bars according to local reports.
Totally unacceptable sentence and far far too light. Absolutely ridiculous. Sam is going to get out of there in 20 years over to a $1M Bitcoin like the count of monte cristo and use all the little acorns he’s hidden away with friends and family for destruction and vengeance.
— Autism Capital 🧩 (@AutismCapital) March 28, 2024
Bankman-Fried diverted over $8 billion in customer funds to support high-risk venture investments, finance sponsorships with celebrity athletes such as Tom Brady, and sustain a luxurious lifestyle in the Bahamas, among other expenditures.
At the time of its bankruptcy in December 2022, FTX had drawn over 100,000 customers from Africa to its platform and was growing its presence with offices and representatives in Nigeria.
Some of the Africans using the platform for their savings were left ruing their trust in the crypto company, and crypto in general.
“All my UK ISA Individual Savings Account, which I saved for the past 15 years was what I lost,” said Victor Asemota, a popular opinion leader in the Nigerian tech industry and strong advocate for FTX in Africa.
Caught up in the bankruptcy were 7 African companies which were part of FTX/Alameda Research portfolio:
- Ovex ($5 million from FTX at a $122 million valuation)
- AZA Finance ($25 million promissory note/loan)
- African mobile money unicorn, Wave ($10 million in equity)
- South African crypto exchange platform, VALR ($4 million equity)
- Nigerian crypto exchange startup, Bitnob ($500,000 from FTX at a $20 million valuation)
- NestCoin ($250,000 equity from FTX at a $30 million valuation)
- Congolese-based web3 startup, Jambo ($500,000 in tokens)
- CoinMara ( 5% from Alameda Research from the $23 million raised)
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