US Regulator Launches Site For Complaints Of FTX Victims. The US government has launched a website for victims of cryptocurrency exchange FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s alleged scams to communicate with law enforcement.
In an order late Friday, January 6, 2023, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan authorized federal prosecutors to use the website, and did not need to contact individual victims.
“FTX may owe money to more than 1 million people, making it impractical for authorities to contact individual victims,” prosecutors said, quoted by Channel News Asia, Monday (9/1/2023).
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Federal law requires prosecutors to contact potential victims of crimes to inform them of their rights, including the right to obtain restitution, be heard in court and be protected from the accused.
“If you believe you may have been the victim of fraud by Samuel Bankman-Fried, alias SBF, please contact the victim coordinator or witness at the United States Attorney’s office,” the website reads. The website has been active on Friday afternoon.
Bankman-Fried, 30, has pleaded not guilty to eight counts of wire fraud and conspiracy over the November FTX collapse. Prosecutors say he stole billions from FTX customer deposits to pay debts to his hedge fund, Alameda Research, and lied to investors about FTX’s financial condition.
The former billionaire admits to his risk management deficiencies, but says he does not hold himself criminally responsible.
Previously, according to onchain research, wallets connected to Sam Bankman-Fried(SBF), co-founder of FTX, transferred a large number of previously unreported transactions across various blockchains.
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The transfer was discovered by Conor Grogan, and while most of the transaction occurred on December 28. Despite that, there was some activity recently in the first few days of the new year.
A large number of SBF-linked tokens that are transferred to various blockchains. Movement is happening on blockchains like Polygon, BinanceSmart Chain (BSC), Arbitrum, and Avalanche. The address saw outward movement for coins such as MATIC, AVAX, USDC, USDT, BTCB, WBTC, SPELL, PTP, MDX, and many more.
US Regulator Launches Site For Complaints Of FTX Victims. “The SBF (or someone with access to their wallet) most likely transferred USD 10 million (Rp 156.3 billion) in previously unreported transactions on the Avalanche, BSC, Arbitrum, and Polygon blockchains,” Grogan wrote on Twitter. Bitcoin.com, Friday, January 6, 2023.
Grogan added that there was recent activity between 2 to 3 January 2023 with wallets receiving crypto worth USD 30 million (Rp 469 billion). So the total transfer of funds related to SBF in the last few days was USD 40 million (Rp. 625.4 billion).
“I checked every address linked to SBF and checked other blockchains. The private key for ETH works on other EVM chains,” added Grogan.
In addition to Grogan’s tweet, onchain researcher Ergo tweeted about some FTX-related bitcoin movements on January 4, 2023. According to Ergo this is likely team activity going bankrupt.
Previously, the former CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) will be prohibited from accessing or transferring funds from the FTX exchange and Alameda Research. That was said by a judge at the SBF indictment trial in Manhattan.
Reporting from Yahoo Finance, Wednesday (4/1/2023), the decision came days after blockchain researchers discovered someone was transferring funds from a crypto wallet linked to his trading company, Alameda Research, which had previously been associated with SBF.
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Bankman-Fried tweeted on December 30 he was not behind the transfer, but Bloomberg reported the same day federal prosecutors were investigating the transaction.
At his arraignment hearing on January 3, Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to eight counts. Assistant US Attorney Danielle Sassoon requested that the terms of Bankman-Fried’s guarantee be amended so that she can no longer access or transfer funds belonging to the former company.
Sassoon acknowledged the government did not yet have proof the transfer was linked to Bankman-Fried, but said the court should not place full faith in SBF, given that he had previously tweeted false information before the collapse of the FTX.
US Regulator Launches Site For Complaints Of FTX Victims. He added the government would no longer be able to access the funds that had been transferred and there were fears the same could happen to other assets.
Bankman-Fried had previously worked with Bahamian regulators after the FTX bankruptcy to transfer customer funds because he thought foreign regulators might be more lenient than the US government.
Bankman-Fried apparently exchanged notes with one of his attorneys, Mark Cohen, who spoke on behalf of his client to deny the allegations. Cohen said Bankman-Fried’s legal team had contacted the government to help find the source of the transaction, but Bankman-Fried no longer had access to the wallet.
