Alameda Research LLC was a quantitative cryptocurrency trading firm founded in 2017 with operations in the United States, Hong Kong, and The Bahamas. Alameda principally engaged in high-frequency cryptocurrency arbitrage trading, as well as market making, pooling of digital assets to earn interest, and other forms of cryptocurrency trading.
FTX Trading Ltd., popularly known simply as "FTX," was a global cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2019.
Samuel Bankman-Fried was a founder, owner, and CEO of both Alameda and FTX. He served as Alameda's CEO until November 2021 when he stepped down to focus solely on FTX.
Zixiao (Gary) Wang was a co-owner of Alameda with Bankman-Fried.
Caroline Ellison was an Alameda employee who became its co-CEO when Bankman-Fried stepped down.
Nishan Singh was the Director of Engineering at FTX.
Ryan Salame was the head of Alameda's settlements team and was later named co-CEO of FTX's Bahamian affiliate FTX Digital Markets Ltd.
According to the documents in this case, the DOJ alleged that beginning in 2019, the defendants engaged in a wide-ranging conspiracy to defraud FTX's customers by misappropriating billions of dollars of those customers’ funds. Bankman-Fried used the FTX customer funds for his personal use, to make investments and millions of dollars of political contributions to federal political candidates and committees, and to repay billions of dollars in loans owed by Alameda. The DOJ also alleged that Bankman-Fried defrauded lenders to Alameda Research and equity investors in FTX by concealing his misuse of customer deposits in financial information that was provided to them. At some point, Chinese authorities froze certain Alameda trading accounts containing over $1 billion. In an effort to regain access to those assets, the DOJ alleged that Bankman-Friend paid a bribe of at least $40 million to one or more Chinese government officials to unfreeze the accounts so that they could be used to fund Alameda trading activity.
On December 9, 2022, the DOJ filed an eight-count indictment in the Southern District of New York against Bankman-Fried alleging conspiracies to commit wire, commodities, and securities frauds in addition to conspiracies to commit money laundering and to violate campaign finance laws.
Wang, Ellison, and Singh were added in individual superseding informations filed on December 19, 2022, and February 28, 2023.
On February 22, 2023, the DOJ filed a superseding indictment against Bankman-Fried alleging further charges of bank fraud and unlicensed money transmission in addition to the charges in the December indictment.
In March 28, 2023, the DOJ filed a second superseding indictment against Bankman-Fried that added a count of conspiracy to violate the antibribery provisions of the FCPA. Only Bankman-Friend has been charged with violating the FCPA.
In a letter to the court on June 14, 2023, the DOJ asked that the court sever counts four, six, nine, ten, and thirteen from the superseding indictment. Count thirteen is the conspiracy to violate the FCPA charge. These counts were added after Bankman-Fried was extradited from the Bahamas, and the DOJ was seeking consent from the Bahamian government to add the charges under the extradition agreement. In light of the uncertainty of when the Bahamas would respond to the DOJ's request, the DOJ asked the court to reserve these counts for future trial and to proceed with the remaining counts in the current trial. The next day, the court ordered the counts severed and scheduled for a separate trial to begin on March 11, 2024.
On September 7, 2023, the DOJ filed a superseding information against Salame alleging a conspiracies to make unlawful political contributions and to defraud the Federal Elections Commission as well as to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. Salame was arraigned and pled guilty on the same day, and the court preliminarily ordered him to forfeit $6 million.
On November 2, 2023, the jury convicted Bankman-Fried on all of the remaining non-FCPA charges. On March 28, 2024, the court sentenced Bankman-Fried to 25 years in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release. The court also ordered him to pay forfeiture of $11,020,000,000 plus a mandatory assessment of $700. Because these sanctions do not relate to the FCPA charges, we have not entered them into the database as their size could skew some of the Clearinghouse's calculated statistics. Bankman-Fried is jointly and severally liable for the forfeiture amount with Ellison and Singh.
On May 29, 2024, the court sentenced Salame to 90 months in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release and ordered him to pay a fine of $500,000, restitution of $5,593,177.91, which the court noted had been satisfied, and a mandatory assessment of $200.
Wang, Ellison, and Singh all pled guilty pursuant to undisclosed plea agreements.
On September 24, 2024, the court sentenced Ellison to two years in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release and ordered her to pay a mandatory assessment of $700. On September 25, the court entered a preliminary forfeiture order requiring Ellison to forfeit $11,020,000,000, for which she was jointly and severally liable with Bankman-Fried, Singh, and Wang.
On October 30, 2024, the court sentenced Singh to time served in prison and three years of supervised release. On the same date, the court entered a preliminary forfeiture order requiring Singh to forfeit $11,020,000,000, for which he was jointly and severally liable with Bankman-Fried, Ellison, and Wang.
On November 20, 2024, the court sentencced Wang to time served in prison plus three years of supervised release and ordered him to pay a mandatory assessment of $400. On the same date, the court entered a preliminary forfeiture order requiring Wang to forfeit $11,020,000,000, for which he was jointly and severally liable with Bankman-Fried, Ellison, and Singh.
