New York (CNN) Federal prosecutors announced four more criminal charges Sam Bankman Friedfounder of cryptocurrency trading platform FTX, has expanded his potential liability in what authorities allege is a multibillion-dollar scam.
Bankman-Fried was indicted in December on an eight-count indictment. An indictment was unveiled Thursday adding new charges to a total of 12 counts, including conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transfer business, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, and securities fraud.
Bankman Fried, which was It was issued on a $250 million bond, who previously pleaded not guilty to charges announced in December, including one count of conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws. At the time, he was charged with multiple counts of conspiracy, fraud, and conspiracy to violate US campaign finance laws by making political donations through straw donors.
The FTX founder made more than 300 illegal political contributions through straw donors totaling tens of millions of dollars paid out by Alameda Funds and FTX, according to the recently unsealed indictment.
Although the SBF personally became one of the largest publicized political donors in the 2022 midterm elections, it fraudulently made pre-midterm donations in the names of two FTC executives to bolster its influence, according to the court filing.
The indictment stated that Bankman-Fried strategized making political donations across the political spectrum, not wanting to appear left-leaning partisan or publicly attach his name to Republican candidates, so he would make certain contributions in the names of his executives. Thought it better fit the bill.
The SBF wanted to keep Republican contributions “in the dark,” according to the indictment, so those donations were made via an FTX executive identified only as CC-2 in the indictment, who publicly allied himself with the conservatives.
Bankman-Fried conspired to contribute “at least $1 million” to a super PAC that was supporting a candidate running for a congressional seat in the United States and appeared to be connected to pro-LGBT issues, the indictment says.
This contribution was made in the name of another FTX executive because “there was no one trusted at FTX [who was] Bi/gay is “in a position to contribute,” the new indictment states.
Despite the staff member’s annoyance at the situation, a political consultant working for the SBF told the executive branch, identified in the indictment as CC-1, “In general, being the central left face of our spending means you give a lot of wake up for transactional purposes.”
In another instance shortly before the 2022 midterm elections, an FTX employee was instructed to transfer $107,000 from a Bankman-Fried account to the New York State Democratic Committee via this FTX executive.
The CEO eventually became one of the top Democratic donors in the 2022 midterm elections, furthering the Bankman-Fried agenda with donations that executives wouldn’t have made on their own, the filing says.
In November 2022 prior to his imminent indictment, this executive expressed concern to the SBF in chat messages about “maybe 80 million” in “donations/personal/etc” that had been passed through his bank account in his name. The two discussed plans to hide wire transfers on the company’s books, but ultimately did not make the deals that would hide the campaign finance scheme, the indictment said.
The SBF planned the political contributions scheme with the co-conspirators participating in an auto-deleted message conversation called “donation processing,” the indictment says.
Donations were made with funds from Alameda’s bank accounts including FTX customer funds that were then transferred to the personal accounts of the donors who made the contributions. The outgoing transfers were hidden in the company’s internal records as expenses or loans to these executives.
No other co-conspirators have been charged in the new indictment unveiled Thursday.
It is not yet clear when the SBF will be brought to court on the four new counts included in the 12-count indictment.
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