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A jury in Manhattan found him guilty this Thursday, November 2, 2023, of stealing from clients of his FTX cryptocurrency platform in one of the largest financial frauds in the history of the United States.
In his prime, he was nicknamed “the wunderkind” of Wall Street, made advertisements in the Super Bowl and even dreamed of a future candidacy for the Presidency of the United States. But the spectacular rise of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried hit rock bottom this Thursday.
The young former billionaire is preparing to hear his conviction for having defrauded clients of FTX, the cryptocurrency platform he founded just four years ago, out of billions of dollars.
A Manhattan federal court jury found him guilty of all seven charges he faced after a month-long trial in which prosecutors argued he looted $8 billion from his users out of pure greed.
Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams, recalled that “Sam Bankman-Fried perpetrated one of the largest financial frauds in American history, a multi-million dollar scheme designed to make him the king of cryptocurrencies.”
The verdict came just a year after FTX, once the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency exchange, filed for bankruptcy, shocking financial markets and wiping out the 31-year-old’s Forbes magazine-estimated personal fortune. at 26 billion dollars.
From “child prodigy” to the list of biggest scammers
The 12 jurors who reviewed her case rejected Bankman-Fried’s claim during her testimony that she never committed fraud or intended to deceive customers.
Instead, He was found guilty of two counts of fraud and five counts of conspiracy, which carry penalties of up to 110 years in prison. The reading of the conviction was set for March 28, 2024.
Bankman-Fried was once the darling of the cryptocurrency world. He has been known for his curly, unkempt hair and for wearing shorts and T-shirts instead of business clothes.
After this sentence he joins famous fraudsters such as Bernie Madoff, who defrauded thousands of clients with his Ponzi scheme, and the ‘Wolf of Wall Street’, Jordan Belfort, all with notable convictions for the largest financial crimes in the United States.
With AP and Reuters
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