July 21 (UPI) — FTX lawyers filed a lawsuit against the failed cryptocurrency exchange’s former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried over alleged stolen funds.
The complaint filed Thursday seeks to reclaim millions of dollars in funding that the company’s lawyers allege Bankman-Fried as well as other executives at FTX and sister hedge fund Alameda Research including Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang and Nishad Singh stole from the company.
The lawsuit accused Bankman-Fried and the leadership team of awarding themselves lavishly before the collapse of FTX, including millions in bonuses and stocks. The lawsuit claimed that Ellison gave herself a $22.5 million bonus in March 2022 while filing at the same time that FTX.com had a cash shortfall of $10 billion.
The lawsuit also charged that Bankman-Fried and Wang, the former FTX chief technology officer, took $546 million from Alameda in May 2022 to acquire shares in Robinhood Markets Inc.
In one of the most unusual charges, lawyers cite a memo exchange between a foundation officer and Bankman-Fried’s brother, Gabriel Bankman-Fried, laying out a scheme to buy the tiny island nation of Nauru and build a bunker there in case of a global catastrophe.
Additionally, it claimed that Bankman-Fried used a $10 million gift to his father Joe Bankman that was routed from FTX through Bankman-Fried’s Morgan Stanely and TD Ameritrade accounts in January 2022 to fund his legal defense.
Bankman-Fried was indicted on fraud and bribery charges and hit with campaign finance violations after FTX, once valued at $32 billion, filed for bankruptcy in late 2022.
In March, he entered a not-guilty plea to five additional charges related to FTX’s collapse.
Those new charges filed in New York federal court accused him of directing the payment of at least $40 million in cryptocurrency to one or more Chinese government officials to unfreeze trading accounts tied to Alameda Research.