{"id":84167,"date":"2023-09-08T09:40:29","date_gmt":"2023-09-08T06:40:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=84167"},"modified":"2025-09-12T15:42:51","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T12:42:51","slug":"former-ftx-bahamas-unit-chief-pleads-guilty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/former-ftx-bahamas-unit-chief-pleads-guilty\/","title":{"rendered":"Former FTX Bahamas unit chief pleads guilty"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On Thursday, September 7, the former CEO of FTX&#8217;s Bahamas unit, Ryan Salame, pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange. The matter is described in the <a href=\\\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-sdny\/pr\/statement-us-attorney-damian-williams-guilty-plea-ryan-salame-former-ceo-ftx\\\">statement<\/a> by authorities.<\/p>\n<p>The charges concern conspiracy to make illegal political donations and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmission business.<\/p>\n<p>At the hearing, the former head of the Bahamas unit told Judge Lewis Kaplan that he made political donations in his own name &#8220;in support of initiatives put forward by others but backed by Sam Bankman-Fried&#8221; (SBF). According to him, the funds were provided from Alameda Research and &#8220;were classified as loans&#8221;.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cRyan Salame agreed to advance the interests of FTX, Alameda Research and his associates through an unlawful political influence campaign and through an unlicensed money-transfer business, which helped FTX grow faster, operating illegally,\u201d said Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>In addition to the forfeiture of more than $1.5 billion under the agreement, Salame is obliged to reimburse $5.6 million. He also agreed to pay $6 million before the sentencing in March 2024. To cover this amount, the former top executive <a href=\\\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/1C6OXG0YbH2Entzd7Fj7XmRhozAQ04yKV\/view\\\">will hand over<\/a> a Porsche and several real estate properties, including two houses in Massachusetts.<\/p>\n<p>In November 2022\u2014two days before FTX filed for bankruptcy\u2014Salame, who led the Bahamas unit, <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/bahamas-authorities-learned-of-possible-fraud-by-ftx-in-november\">warned local authorities<\/a> about potential fraud. He became the fourth top executive of the exchange to plead guilty. Earlier, Caroline Ellison, the former head of Alameda Research, and Gary Wang, the exchange&#8217;s chief technology officer, <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/caroline-ellison-and-gary-wang-plead-guilty-to-ftx-collapse-related-charges\">agreed to cooperate<\/a> with the investigation, and <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/sec-accuses-former-ftx-top-executive-of-deceiving-investors\">Nishad Singh<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Bankman-Fried <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/sam-bankman-fried-accused-of-bribing-a-chinese-official\">was charged with<\/a> 13 criminal offenses. Later the prosecutors <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/us-prosecutors-seek-to-detain-sam-bankman-fried-pending-trial\">dropped the charge<\/a> of financing some politicians as part of a deal with the defense.<\/p>\n<p>The founder of FTX <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/sam-bankman-fried-refuses-to-plead-guilty-trial-set-for-october\">did not plead guilty<\/a> to any of the counts, including <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/reuters-bankman-fried-pleads-not-guilty-to-bribery-of-chinese-official\">the bribery of a Chinese official<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In August 2023, the court <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/sam-bankman-fried-jailed-ahead-of-trial\">revoked his bail<\/a> and ordered SBF held in custody until October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Thursday, September 7, the former CEO of FTX&#8217;s Bahamas unit, Ryan Salame, pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":84168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1162,1236,26],"class_list":["post-84167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-court-cases","tag-ftx","tag-usa"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"12","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84167"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84169,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84167\/revisions\/84169"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}