Dec 17 (Reuters) – Former FTX Chief Executive Sam Bankman-Fried is expected to appear in court in the Bahamas on Monday to reverse his decision to contest extradition to the United States, where he faces fraud charges, a person familiar with the matter said on Saturday.
Carjackings are up more than 100 per cent in Toronto this year in a string of cases often involving armed youth. Behind the crime wave: organized crime, the opioid epidemic and the promise of “life-changing” money.
$10,000.
That’s how much Toronto police believe a young teen can get for stealing a luxury car at gunpoint and handing it over to adult criminals who then strip the vehicles of any identifiers and, often, ship them overseas.
That astronomical sum — for teens, at least — may help explain why this city is seeing a “staggering” rise in carjackings and other armed robberies involving youth, the head of the force’s hold-up squad said in a rare year-end interview with the Star.
FTX investor and former paid spokesperson Kevin O’Leary refused to condemn Sam Bankman-Fried or classify the doomed company’s meltdown as fraud during a tense television appearance on Friday.
O’Leary, one of the sharks on the hit show “Shark Tank,” provided a toothless response when pressed to point a finger at who’s to blame.
“I don’t have all the facts,” he told the hosts of CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
The parents of Kaylee Goncalves, one of the four murdered Idaho students, are begging local businesses to comb through surveillance footage after a gas station attendant found a clip of a white Hyundai on the night of the unsolved killings.
Police are investigating the car after it stopped at an Exxon Mobil station around 3.45am on November 13, a mile away from where Kaylee, 21, Maddie Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, were murdered in their off-campus home between 3am and 4am.
Police said earlier this month that they believe the occupants of the vehicle ‘may have critical information’ regarding the murder case.
A daylight robbery highlights danger in urban crime wave.
A70-year-old woman was walking her dog in one of Chicago’s most affluent neighborhoods Wednesday when she was confronted by a masked stranger who pointed a pistol in her face and shouted, “Give me your f***ing purse or I’ll kill you and your f***ing dog, too.” She instantly complied, whereupon the robber grabbed her purse, reached in and took her car keys, flung the purse aside, and got into a blue Honda with three other accomplices. They rolled up the block to where the woman’s Jeep Grand Cherokee was parked, then two of the thieves exited the Honda and climbed into the woman’s Jeep, and both vehicles sped away.
Disgraced crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried’s relatives reportedly called the rodent-infested Bahamas prison where he is being held and asked if he could get vegan meals.
The founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX — who was charged this week with multiple financial crimes — has his own room in the maximum-security section of the Bahamas lockup that is known to be crawling with rats and maggots, unnamed sources told Bloomberg.
Bankman-Fried’s relatives called the Fox Hill jail in Nassau Tuesday night to request that vegan meals be provided to him, a source told the outlet.
When alleged crypto-fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried finished testifying at a congressional hearing last December, Democrat Maxine Waters, chair of the House Financial Services Committee, blew him a kiss as he walked by.
And why not, since the shambolic 30-year-old former multibillionaire is acknowledged to be the second-biggest donor to the Democrats, after George Soros.
He helped bankroll Joe Biden into the White House and had promised to donate $1 billion to help the party win the 2024 presidential election.
Kevin O’Leary was in Miami having lunch with the business team of Circle Internet Financial LLC, a Boston-based technology company that had come up with USDC, the so-called stablecoin cryptocurrency pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar. It was the Bitcoin 2021 Conference held in early June that year, a sold-out event charging US$1,499 for a standard pass and about US$21,000 for an exclusive “Whale Pass,” which provided attendees with access to extra speakers, parties, private areas and bars.
Sam Bankman-Fried’s reported ex-girlfriend was likely among the first people to turn on him and help prosecutors build their fast-moving fraud case in the epic, $8 billion-plus collapse of his FTX cryptocurrency exchange, a former US government lawyer said Wednesday,
Caroline Ellison, 28, is a key figure in the case as she was at one time CEO of the Alameda Research hedge fund — which authorities claim received billions of dollars that Bankman-Fried, 30, diverted from FTX.
“She would have among the greatest incentives to cooperate, as it was seeming likely that in his effort to exculpate himself, Bankman-Fried would try to finger her,” former Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer Howard Fischer told The Post.
Oh Sammy you better get used to your new cell mate Bubba.
Caroline Ellison Was Alameda’s CEO, But Officials Say Sam Bankman-Fried Ran It
When Sam Bankman-Fried told his side of the story of what happened to FTX, the crypto exchange that went bankrupt on his watch last month, he often pointed the finger elsewhere. His favorite target was Alameda Research, the trading firm where Caroline Ellison was chief executive.
This week, the U.S. government pointed back at Mr. Bankman-Fried.
Update – This is new info – Bahamian authorities were tipped off by top Bankman-Fried associate
One of Sam Bankman-Fried’s close associates told Bahamian regulators in the days before FTX collapsed that the now-disgraced founder had likely funnelled customer money to his hedge fund, a move that helped accelerate the 30-year-old’s downfall.
Ryan Salame, co-chief executive of FTX’s Bahamas operating entity, informed the country’s securities commission on November 9 that FTX customer funds had been used to cover losses at Alameda Research, according to Bahamian court records(opens a new window).
Salame identified Bankman-Fried and two other FTX executives as potentially being responsible, an allegation that triggered a referral to the Bahamas police and ultimately the appointment of liquidators.
So it looks like Caroline was not the first but among the first. I wonder if she made the call or if someone came knocking with some friendly advice.
Fallen crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried is being held in a Bahamian jail known to be overrun with rats and maggots — one so bad a warden has called it “not fit for humanity.”
The accused fraudster, once estimated to be worth $32 billion, is being held in the island’s only correctional facility, Fox Hill Prison, until at least Feb. 8 after failing to get bail while fighting against extradition to the US.
The jail was the focus of a damning report last year by the US Department of State into possible human rights violations, including violence and abuse by staff.
Mini-Madoff is in for some serious culture shock.
Idaho authorities retrieved hours of footage from a Moscow gas station Tuesday that reportedly captured a white sedan speeding by the night four college students were killed at their nearby home, according to a report.
The surveillance footage could potentially be of importance as just last week Moscow police announced that they were looking for the occupants of a white Hyundai who may have “critical information” in last month’s murders of four University of Idaho students.
The spectacular rise and fall of Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the failed crypto exchange FTX, came full circle on Monday, with his arrest in the Bahamas at the request of U.S. authorities, followed by the S.E.C. filing its own charges on Tuesday.
The Times reports that federal prosecutors in Manhattan, who are seeking his extradition, will charge Mr. Bankman-Fried with wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy and money laundering. A trial could start late next year.
“Sam Bankman-Fried built a house of cards on a foundation of deception while telling investors that it was one of the safest buildings in crypto,” Gary Gensler, the S.E.C.’s chair, said in a statement. His agency has charged S.B.F., as the entrepreneur is known, with defrauding investors in FTX out of $1.8 billion, including $1.1 billion from U.S. entities. A big part of the fraud, it alleges, was keeping backers in the dark about “the undisclosed diversion of FTX customers’ funds” to the exchange’s trading affiliate, Alameda Research.
Teeters? More like fell down, burned up and sank into the swamp. But being a well connected Dem the swamp may be his salvation.
When news of Barry and Honey Sherman’s death broke five years ago it sent a powerful shock wave through Toronto’s business and philanthropic community. Hours later, a bigger shock wave — the theory that Barry killed Honey, then took his own life. The Toronto media were quoting “police sources” and a homicide detective at the scene said they were not seeking any “outstanding suspects.”
That police theory changed to “targeted” double homicide five weeks later when the Star published details of the private autopsy arranged by the Sherman family. Markings on the Shermans’ wrists revealed they’d been bound while alive. Plus, there were thin ligature marks around their necks, under the belts that were holding them in a seated position beside their swimming pool. The belts were used to stage, not kill them.
Yesterday, Sam Bankman-Fried (known as SBF), the former CEO of the collapsed cryptocurrency giant FTX, was arrested in the Bahamas and is being held in Bahamian jail pending his extradition to the United States. In an indictment unsealed this morning, SBF was charged with mail and wire fraud, money laundering, and other crimes related to a scheme measured in the billions of dollars.
If convicted on all charges, he faces a sentence along the same lines as the 150 years imposed on the notorious Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff.
For weeks, the Justice Department did not have SBF arrested in the Bahamas, despite widespread public clamor for him to be immediately jailed. There are three reasons why the DOJ waited.
This is the best explanation I have found of the charges and potential consequences the entitled little crook is facing.
A Bahamian judge is allowing Sam Bankman-Fried’s parents to leave court in the middle of his arraignment hearing to retrieve anti-depressants, Adderall and Zyrtec.
Bankman-Fried is accused of one of the ‘biggest financial frauds in American history’ – defrauding investors out of $1.8billion by convincing them his trading platform FTX was safe to use.
He is begging for mercy – asking for $250,000 cash bond – and claiming he can’t be thrown in jail because he is depressed and follows a vegan diet.
