FTX crypto exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday (28/3) after being found guilty. This is one of the largest cases of financial fraud in United States (US) history.
Prosecutors demanded that Bankman-Fried be sentenced to 40-50 years in prison, after the jury at his trial in New York found him guilty in November last year, following a five-week trial to investigate the bankruptcy of the once-soaringly successful crypto player.
During the trial, Bankman-Fried told the courtroom that he was “sorry about what happened.” He also said “There are things I should do, and things I shouldn't do.”
The final verdict was pronounced by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who used the hearing to closely review Bankman-Fried's financial crimes.
Post-conviction, Bankman-Fried will likely appeal his sentence.
Bankman-Fried co-founded the FTX crypto exchange in 2019, and in a short time, he grew it into the second most popular cryptocurrency trading platform in the world. However, FTX's collapse was as rapid as its success. In the fall of 2022, the exchange went bankrupt.
Prosecutors immediately charged Bankman-Fried with misappropriating billions of dollars in FTX customer deposits. Prosecutors also revealed that he used the money to support his hedge funds, buy real estate, and try to influence cryptocurrency policy by donating campaign funds to US politicians and bribing Chinese government officials $150 million (around IDR 2.3 trillion). (br/n)