FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s ex-girlfriend, Caroline Ellison, testified on Wednesday that she and the accused fraudster attempted to use the IDs of “Thai prostitutes” to move a vast sum of money the Chinese government had frozen, according to The Messenger.
Bankman-Fried and Ellison allegedly employed this strategy before allegedly bribing Chinese government officials $150 million to unfreeze the money, The Messenger reported. The Chinese government allegedly froze $1 billion in funds from Alameda Research, the sister hedge fund to Bankman-Fried’s FTX cryptocurrency exchange, held in two of the country’s cryptocurrency exchanges, according to The Wall Street Journal. (RELATED: Dem Megadonor And Alleged Fraudster Thought He Had A Shot At The Presidency, Ex Testifies)
Ellison and Bankman-Fried “used various trading strategies to move funds out of our frozen accounts, using IDs of different people who I believe were Thai prostitutes,” Ellison testified, according to The Messenger.
AUSA: How much was frozen in China?
Ellison: $1 billion. Sam wanted to find ways to address it.
AUSA: How were they unfrozen?
Ellison: Alameda paid a bribe to Chinese government officials
SBF: Objection, move to strike.
Judge Kaplan: I will strike that— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) October 11, 2023
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan indicted Bankman-Fried for conspiring to bribe Chinese government officials with $40 million to unfreeze the funds in March. However, prosecutors did not include the charge in their August superseding indictment.
Bankman-Fried currently faces seven charges, including defrauding FTX customers and lenders, according to The New York Times. Prosecutors allege that he masterminded a scheme of diverting billions of dollars from customers’ FTX deposits to fund campaign contributions, donations to charities and real estate acquisitions.
Bankman-Fried’s attorney did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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