Samuel Benjamin Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison: how much did the FTX founder steal?
The founder and former CEO of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange was sentenced to 25 years in prison for one of the biggest financial frauds in US history.
On Thursday, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan gave Samuel Benjamin Bankman-Fried a 25-year sentence. The former financial wunderkind was found guilty in November on fraud and conspiracy for the spectacular collapse of FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange.
The judge had made it clear that he was unlikely to hand down the maximum of 110 years SBF was facing based on the charges in the indictment. Prosecutors had been asking for 40 to 50 years.
Samuel Benjamin Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison: how much did the FTX founder steal?
Bankman-Fried was found guilty on seven conspiracy and fraud counts by a jury. Prosecutors called it one of the biggest financial frauds in US history.
FTX, founded by SBF and of which he was CEO, collapsed in a matter of days in November 2022. The once leading cryptocurrency exchange had been valued at roughly $32 billion. After its bankruptcy, investigators discovered over $8 billion in customer assets missing which SBF was accused of stealing.
Bankman-Fried had claimed that FTX customers really hadn’t lost any money. “A thief who takes his loot to Las Vegas and successfully bets the stolen money is not entitled to a discount on the sentence by using his Las Vegas winnings to pay back what he stole,” the judge said.
In all, FTX customers lost $8 billion, equity investors $1.7 billion in addtion to $1.3 billion lost by lenders to SBF’s hedge fund, Alameda Research.
“He knew it was wrong. He knew it was criminal. He regrets that he made a very bad bet about the likelihood of getting caught,” Kaplan said of the defendant before handing down the sentence. “But he is not going to admit a thing, as is his right.”