SFB FTX – Arrested

When a high-level criminal case gets investigated with the prime suspect arrested, that’s typically a good thing, right? What about when the person of focus in this investigation was a day away from speaking to a congressional oversight committee on the same criminal allegations? Does this shift the direction or cause the defendant to clam up and lawyer up? Ultimately will this series of events help to bring the truth out, bringing understanding and awareness to the general public? The situation described is that of the FTX owner Sam Bankman-Fried.

Though originally Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) openly stated he did nothing wrong, expecting no legal repercussions for his actions with FTX, he has recently come to terms with how wrong he was, admitting he “f-cked up.” This came out in the draft testimony of his court case after being arrested on Dec 13th  on eight criminal charges, including campaign donation violation.

After vowing to fight extradition from the Bahamas, Fried was locked up with a $250k bail following his hearing in the capital city Nassau, eventually agreeing to expedition later in the week.

Looking at a maximum prison sentence of 115 years, SBF awaits his next court appearance on February 8, 2023.  In a recent news conference, Manhattan US Attorney, Damian Williams, articulated several allegations against Sam Bankman-Fried as reported by the New York Post.

• Since 2019, Sam Bankman-Fried and unidentified co-conspirators allegedly stole billions of dollars from FTX customers, with the defendant using it “for his personal benefit, including to make personal investments and to cover expenses and debts of his hedge fund, Alameda Research.”
• Sam Bankman-Fried allegedly “lied to Alameda’s investors about the source of the money that he was using to pay those debts.”
• When crypto prices collapsed in May, Sam Bankman-Fried allegedly lied to FTX customers “about the fact that he had sent billions of dollars in FTX customer money to Alameda.”
• Sam Bankman-Fried also allegedly used tens of millions of dollars in Alameda funds to illegally make political donations “to candidates and committees associated with both Democrats and Republicans.”

Williams stated:

“These contributions were disguised to look like they were coming from wealthy co-conspirators when, in fact, the contributions were funded by Alameda Research with stolen customer money,” Williams said.

“And all this dirty money was used in service of Bankman-Fried’s desire to buy bipartisan influence and impact the direction of public policy in Washington.”

Williams said various, unidentified people were cooperating with the feds, and he urged Sam Bankman-Fried’s remaining alleged accomplices to start cooperating or face imminent arrest in what he called “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history.” More over,

“To anyone who participated in wrongdoing at FTX or Alameda Research and who has not yet come forward, I would strongly encourage you to come see us before we come to you,”

Williams warned that his “all-hands-on-deck investigation” was “very much ongoing” and “moving very quickly,” adding,

SFB FTX – Congressional Hearing

On Tuesday, December 13, 2022 SBF was supposed to appear before the house financial services committee, led by Democrat Maxine Waters.  As stated previously in this article, that did not happen.  Instead on Tuesday he was arrested, being temporarily held in the Bahamas while awaiting U.S. extradition.

Many have speculated that the choosing of Waters to the lead the Congressional oversight investigation was questionable to say the least. Being that while speaking in front of Congress nearly a year ago, Maxine Waters was observed blowing Sammy boy a kiss. Many of the allegations revolving around Sam Bankman-Fried’s case involve illegal campaign contributions, contributions primarily having gone to Democrat candidates. Being near the top donor next to George Soros, it is suspicious that a high ranking Democrat House member was placed at the lead of this hearing.

What is even more suspicious than that, is the timing of the criminal charges placed against him. Who’s to know what would have been revealed during the Congressional finance committee hearing. Would Sam Bankman-Fried have been open about his actions? If he still held the belief that he was not going to face any serious charges for his actions, would he have let the world know a little more about the inner workings of this global scandal?

Now we will never know, that ship sailed without Sam Bankman-Fried aboard. Now he is fully aware of the legal gravity of his situation, whatever he says will be carefully managed by his legal team. Likely burying the real truth of the situation, for what could be an indefinite period of time.

SBF of FTX – Donations to Political Parties

One of the charges as mentioned before includes campaign donation violations, while some political contributions from FTX went to GOP rinos like Mitch McConnell, the majority of the funding has been directed towards Democrat political candidates. Fried gave $24 million to Republicans, reportedly giving even more to Democrat parties and organizations.  While indirectly through PACs, like the Sam Bankman-Fried’s PAC, he spent over $23 million supporting Democrats and an additional $12 million on Republicans.

Said to have donated over $70 million in the last two years to primarily democratic US elections, SBF is only rivaled by global influencers such as George Soros, when gauging  monetary influence. The former crypto king made one of the largest donations to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign in 2020, contributing $5.2 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. When asked if these campaign contributions would be returned, White House staff refused to respond citing the Hatch Act prevents them from speaking on campaign activities. 

Feeling the pressure of public scrutiny, a number of lawmakers and politicians are considering returning SBF donations. Beto O’Rourke, a Texas candidate for governor, claims to have returned $1 million dollars in SBF donations, while Choy Garcia (D-Illinois) and Kevin Hern (R-Oklahoma) claim to have donated the money to charity.

SBF FTX – Bahamas a History of Human Trafficking

It is common knowledge the Bahamas have played a key role in many trade routes throughout history.  One of those less desirable roles to bring up in in casual conversation, was the role played by the region during the times of slave trading. In the modern times when speaking of the Caribbean, people think of vacation spots, warm weather, sandy beaches and spring break. While all this is true, multiple instances of human trafficking occur there and elsewhere around the world.

A government report put out on human trafficking States the following: 

“The Bahamas is a destination country for men and women trafficked from Haiti and other Caribbean countries primarily for the purpose of forced labor, and women from Jamaica and other countries trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. In situations that, for some workers, may constitute forced labor, employers coerce migrant or temporary workers — legal and illegal — to work longer hours, at lower pay, and in conditions not permitted under local labor law by changing the terms of contracts, withholding travel documents, refusing transportation back home, threatening to withdraw the employer-specific and employer-held permits, or to turn the employee over to immigration.”

One semi-recent example of human trafficking that made mainstream news was the scandal that the Clintons were involved in around the time of the earthquake and their foundation’s subsequent work in Haiti. This incident was centered around Laura Silsby, leader of a group of alleged Baptist missionaries who were attempting to transport Haitian children without the government’s approval.

As reported by NPR :

“Last week, the group entered Haiti from the Dominican Republic, met with the pastor and gathered a group of children, Mr. Ham said. The group had signed permission “to take children from Haiti back to the Dominican Republic,” as well as documentation from the Dominican Republic itself, he said. But when the group got to the border, Haitian officials told the group they lacked “one document,”

Carlos Castillo, the Dominican Republic’s consul general in Port-au-Prince, gave a different account: In an interview he said he met with Ms. Silsby on Friday told her she lacked any documents to transport children, and warned her not to try or she could be arrested.”

Mr. Ham

The scandal also involved mismanagement of donations to the Clinton Foundation for rebuilding after the earthquake – despite millions in donations practically nothing was rebuilt. 

Another strange caveat to the situation was shortly after that Laura Silsby, now being called Laura Galyer, and now working at Alert Sense, was providing technology for Amber Alerts and FEMA Emergency response.

Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX – Broader Implications

How believable is it that SBF is the Mastermind behind this global scam, a scheme that pumped millions of dollars into primarily Democrat run political campaigns over the past couple years. A scam that seemingly involves governments including the US, Bahamas, and Ukraine.

It’s almost a little too convenient that SBF went on a media tour following the leak on the details of FTX illegal actions. 

According to Coin Desk Admitting:

• Though couched in an obfuscated language full of strategic omissions, Sam Bankman-Fried has effectively admitted to commingling funds between Alameda and FTX, under admirably sustained questioning from both Sorkin and Stephanopoulos.
• In the interview with Wieczner, Sam Bankman-Fried effectively admitted to Alameda’s special exemption from margin rules. Bloomberg’s Matt Levine unpacks this in depth here.
• In the Twitter Spaces event on Thursday, Sam Bankman-Fried seemed to admit that when some customers bought bitcoin on FTX, the exchange never actually purchased and held the BTC. That is, FTX was selling so-called “paper bitcoin” that appeared as BTC balances on the exchange but that was unbacked by any real tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain.

It has been speculated that many who run in the elite circles utilize cryptocurrency for illegal purposes, purchases one might not want seen on their bank records an/or tax returns. Knowing that the Bahamas is historically and currently an active region for human trafficking, it is not hard to imagine what someone might be doing in that area who has ties to the crypto world and the trafficking world. Images of Bill Clinton and Jeffrey Epstein, or Bill Clinton and Sam Bankman-Fried are easy to find when doing a web search, making it quite apparent that these individuals run in the same circles, elevating the probability that they may also be involved in some of the same scandals.

What will these connections do for SBF though, was he really an insider or just a patsy?

Memes are already out there with Jeffrey Epstein telling SBF not to worry, that camera systems in jail or prison will protect him. Like the Epstein case, will this trial fail to achieve Justice, shining light on a Fall Guy who is only to disappear with none of his cohorts and partners being implicated?