Bankman-Fried lied to the world as he built crypto empire: Prosecutors

Sam Bankman-Fried “lied to the world” as he built his cryptocurrency empire at FTX, telling only his friends and girlfriend the truth about what happened, prosecutors said on the first day of a historic fraud trial.

Nathan Rehn, an assistant U.S. attorney, painted a picture of the 31-year-old as a calculated criminal who used investor deposits at FTX as a personal bank account before the company went bankrupt a year ago. He said only Bankman-Fried’s inner circle knew he was taking money from customers to finance his lifestyle.

“He had wealth, he had power, he had influence, but it was all based on lies,” Rehn told jurors in federal court in Manhattan on Wednesday. “He committed a massive fraud and took billions of dollars from thousands of victims.”

Prosecutors included several references in their opening statements to former Alameda Research co-CEO Caroline Ellison as one of the people who knew what was happening behind the scenes. Ellison, Bankman-Fried’s former girlfriend, is the government’s star witness after reaching a cooperation agreement last year. Meanwhile, the US told Sam Bankman-Fried on Wednesday that it is going after two luxury jets that prosecutors say are the proceeds of the multibillion-dollar fraud.