{"id":8195,"date":"2023-11-01T16:37:41","date_gmt":"2023-11-01T16:37:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/infundpros.com\/business\/prosecutors-say-bankman-fried-built-a-pyramid-of-deceit-as-trial-concludes\/"},"modified":"2023-11-01T16:37:41","modified_gmt":"2023-11-01T16:37:41","slug":"prosecutors-say-bankman-fried-built-a-pyramid-of-deceit-as-trial-concludes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/infundpros.com\/?p=8195","title":{"rendered":"Prosecutors say Bankman-Fried built a \u2018pyramid of deceit\u2019 as trial concludes"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description\"><span>Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=ffa0ea84-d829-4919-8feb-7c37636d9f43\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>Sam Bankman-Fried\u2019s crypto empire was a \u201cpyramid of deceit\u201d that masked a scheme to steal billions of dollars from customers of his FTX exchange, US prosecutors alleged in the closing arguments of the former mogul\u2019s criminal trial in New York.<\/p>\n<p>Pointing theatrically to the 31-year-old defendant on Wednesday morning, assistant US attorney Nick Roos said, \u201cthis man, Samuel Bankman-Fried\u201d was responsible for raiding FTX depositors\u2019 accounts to make a series of risky bets, repay loans and buy real estate.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe spent customers\u2019 money and he lied about it,\u201d Roos added, maintaining that Bankman-Fried and his company claimed to be the \u201csafest and easiest way to buy cryptocurrencies\u201d in advertising campaigns featuring celebrities Larry David and Tom Brady.<\/p>\n<p>The remarks came at the end of five weeks of testimony that shone a light on the inner workings of FTX, which collapsed last November with an $8bn hole in its balance sheet. Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, which include fraud and money laundering, and potentially faces decades in prison if convicted. <\/p>\n<p>The 12-person jury heard from former executives at the exchange and its affiliated hedge fund Alameda Research, including co-operating witnesses Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang and Nishad Singh. They pointed the finger at Bankman-Fried, alleging that he had instructed them to allow up to $65bn of FTX customer funds to be secretly raided.<\/p>\n<p>Bankman-Fried took the stand and claimed under oath that he had first learned about the misappropriation of the money a month before FTX\u2019s collapse. He spent much of his testimony suggesting that complex trading strategies made it impossible for any one person to be fully abreast of FTX and Alameda\u2019s risk management.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In his closing remarks, Roos sought to rubbish such claims. \u201cThis is not about complicated issues of cryptocurrency, not about hedging\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009it\u2019s about lies, it\u2019s about stealing, it\u2019s about greed,\u201d he told the court. \u201cHe took the money, he knew it was wrong, and he did it anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bankman-Fried, he claimed, \u201cthought he could talk his way out of this\u201d, emphasising that the former billionaire \u201cdidn\u2019t have to testify in this trial\u201d but \u201ctold a story [and] lied to you\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Roos said that while the defendant was fluent when questioned by his own lawyer, \u201che was a different person\u201d on cross-examination and \u201ccouldn\u2019t remember a single detail\u201d about the alleged scheme, claiming some 140 times that he could not recall specifics.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe approached every question like up was down and down was up,\u201d Roos added.<\/p>\n<p>The prosecutor pointed to evidence presented during the government\u2019s case, including \u201csecret spreadsheets\u201d prepared by Ellison with alternative balance sheets to be provided to investors that disguised the extent of use of FTX customer funds, and the establishment of a line of credit for Alameda that allowed it to do \u201cunlimited stealing\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Roos further argued that in order to believe Bankman-Fried\u2019s version of events \u2014 that he was running two successful business but was blindsided by a downturn in the cryptocurrency markets and a smear campaign by competitor Binance, \u201cyou would have to believe that the defendant\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009who graduated from [the Massachusetts Institute of Technology]\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009was actually clueless\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Ellison, Wang and Singh, all of whom have pleaded guilty to fraud, contradicted Bankman-Fried\u2019s narrative, Roos said, reminding the jury that \u201cif you believe even one of these witnesses is telling the truth\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009the defendant is guilty\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Bankman-Fried\u2019s lawyers are expected to deliver their final arguments later on Wednesday. The jury will begin deliberations after both sides have finished. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Read the full article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/ffa0ea84-d829-4919-8feb-7c37636d9f43\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Sam Bankman-Fried\u2019s&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8195","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-business"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Prosecutors say Bankman-Fried built a \u2018pyramid of deceit\u2019 as trial concludes | inFundPros<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Sam Bankman-Fried\u2019s crypto\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/infundpros.com\/?p=8195\" 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