In the News

(WSET) — Billions of dollars were misappropriated and thousands of investors were defrauded. These are the claims the Department of Justice is making against the international cryptocurrency exchange FTX, and its founder and former CEO Samuel Bankman-Fried.

Bankman-Fried was arrested Monday night at his home in the Bahamas and is facing an eight-count indictment of financial crimes. The Justice Dept. unsealed the indictment Tuesday revealing that Samuel Bankman-Fried (SBF) is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and conspiracy to defraud the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and commit campaign finance violations.

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Federal court filings claim SBF and his co-conspirators spent millions in political contributions funded by Alameda Research ahead of the 2022 election. To conceal that contributions were paid for using funds from a corporation and to avoid contribution limits and reporting requirements, SBF allegedly reported contributions in the names of co-conspirators.

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Some of those contributions include $2,900 in campaign donations to Republican incumbents Ben Cline and Morgan Griffith. While Congressman Griffith did not make a comment about the arrest itself, he did say that he will not be keeping the donation.

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Rep. Cline also issued a statement saying he would not keep the money.

“While my campaign received a personal contribution of $2,900 from FTX Co-CEO Ryan Salame, I have donated it to a local charity, the Junior Achievement of SW Virginia. This charity teaches young people skills in financial literacy, as well as career readiness and responsibility, and I felt it was an appropriate recipient of the contribution.”

Read more HERE.