The criminal cases: Bankman-Fried, Ellison, Wang, Singh and Salame

analysisBankman-Fried was extradited from the Bahamas to the United States on 21 December 2022. The U.S. Attorney's Office stated that from 2019 to 2022 he took FTX customer funds for personal use, investments, political contributions and to repay billions of dollars of Alameda Research's loans, while telling customers, investors and the public that deposits were held in custody and that Alameda had no privileged access to FTX; it put the fraud on FTX investors at more than $1.7 billion and on Alameda's lenders at more than $1.3 billion. Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty and contested the charges; a jury in the Southern District of New York found him guilty on all seven counts of the final indictment (two of wire fraud, two of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit securities fraud, commodities fraud and money laundering), and on 28 March 2024 Judge Lewis A. Kaplan sentenced him to 25 years in prison, three years of supervised release and more than $11 billion in forfeiture, authorising the use of forfeited funds to compensate victims. ^{1 2 3 4 5}

analysisHis appeal (Second Circuit No. 24-0961) failed: the judgment was affirmed and the mandate issued on 4 August 2026. His motion for a new trial of February 2026, based on supposedly new evidence, and his request for the judge's recusal were denied on 28 April 2026, and on 7 May 2026 the court entered a preliminary order forfeiting substitute assets. FTX Trading Ltd. filed a third-party petition in the forfeiture proceedings in June 2024 and withdrew it in February 2025; Emergent's liquidators also withdrew theirs. ^{4 2}

analysisCaroline Ellison, former chief executive of Alameda Research, pleaded guilty on 19 December 2022 to seven counts, including wire fraud and conspiracies to commit commodities, securities and wire fraud and money laundering, arising from schemes to defraud FTX's customers and investors, and cooperated. She was sentenced on 24 September 2024 to 24 months in prison and three years of supervised release, with forfeiture; the open counts were dismissed. Gary Wang, FTX's co-founder and chief technology officer, pleaded guilty the same day to four counts and cooperated; he was sentenced on 20 November 2024 to time served. Nishad Singh pleaded guilty on 28 February 2023 to the same felonies, agreed to forfeit assets received from FTX and Alameda, and was sentenced on 30 October 2024 to time served. For Wang and Singh the court declined to order restitution, finding that working out the cause and amount of the victims' losses would complicate and prolong sentencing. The debtors later summarised that the other founders and most senior executives had pleaded guilty to federal crimes arising from fraud and the misappropriation of FTX Group funds. ^{1 2 3 4 5 6}

analysisRyan Salame, a senior figure at Alameda Research from 2019 to 2021 whom prosecutors describe as named co-chief executive of FTX Digital Markets in or about October 2021, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to make unlawful political contributions and defraud the Federal Election Commission and to conspiracy to run an unlicensed money transmitting business. Prosecutors stated that he conspired with Bankman-Fried and others to use FTX, Alameda and "North Dimension" to move FTX customer money without a licence, and that he and his co-conspirators made over 300 unlawful political contributions totalling tens of millions of dollars. On 28 May 2024 Judge Kaplan sentenced him to 90 months in prison; the docket orders $5,593,177.91 of restitution to FTX Trading Ltd.'s bankruptcy estate, a $500,000 fine and forfeiture of $1,561,187,623.74, a figure that differs from the press release's "more than $6 million" without explanation. After sentencing he petitioned for a writ of error coram nobis, which he later sought to withdraw; the court granted one continuance of his surrender date on 30 July 2024 but on 10 October 2024 denied a further motion to postpone surrender; a satisfaction of judgment of 29 December 2025 records payment of the restitution, fine and assessment, but not the forfeiture. ^{1 2 3}

analysisTurkey's Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) announced on 23 November 2022 that its examination of persons connected with FTX.com had produced a strong suspicion that customer deposits were not properly safeguarded, were moved to others or abroad through fictitious transactions, and that customers were made to trade crypto assets that did not exist. It applied to the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office for a money-laundering investigation of Bankman-Fried, who directly or indirectly controlled FTX.com's related persons in Turkey, and others; an investigation was opened and the suspects' assets were seized. These are findings of suspicion at the start of an investigation; its later course is not in the retained records. ¹