FTX Leadership Seeks Return of Over $1B in Cash, Stocks From Former Executives

The property for bankrupt crypto speech FTX is looking to retrieve implicit $1 cardinal successful currency and shares from laminitis Sam Bankman-Fried and different executives it alleges were fraudulently transferred to themselves.

The new lawsuit, filed Thursday, alleges that the defendants utilized their adjacent power implicit the FTX Group's businesses and systems to perpetrate what it calls a monolithic fraud betwixt February 2020 and November 2022, squandering FTX’s assets connected luxury homes, governmental and "charitable" contributions, and assorted investments.

According to the filing, FTX issued much than $725 cardinal worthy of equity to Bankman-Fried, erstwhile CTO and Co-Founder Gary Wang, Director of Engineering Nishad Singh, and erstwhile Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison. Of this $725 million, $447.8 cardinal allegedly went to Singh, and the suit documents however it was recorded arsenic a indebtedness betwixt Singh, trading limb Alameda and FTX.

“In reality, nary 1 paid for the shares, and nary 1 intended to bash so,” the suit reads.

The suit besides alleges that FTX transferred $4.86 cardinal to the radical successful bid to acquisition existent estate, and Bankman-Fried’s father, Allen “Joe” Bankman, received $10 cardinal from Alameda to beryllium utilized for ineligible expenses.

It besides says that Gabriel Bankman-Fried, Sam’s brother, planned to acquisition the federation of Nauru – a tiny land northeast of Australia – with FTX Foundation funds, and much than $100 cardinal successful governmental donations to some parties and governmental enactment committees were made from funds mixed with FTX lawsuit money.

Caroline Ellison, who has a plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York, is accused of awarding herself a $22.5 cardinal bonus astatine the tallness of FTX’s situation past November.

Recently, the U.S. Department of Justice asked a tribunal to soundlessness Bankman-Fried from making out-of-court statements astir the lawsuit aft helium leaked Ellison’s backstage diary to the New York Times.