The FTX Scandal: Where did the money go?

FTX lost billions of dollars of their clients money due to bad investments, is the story that we are being told, but what if the money was intentionally lost making bad investments with friendly investors on the other end?
Would the stolen funds now be 100% legal?
And if so, wouldn't that technically be money laundering?
Could the lost funds have been systematically funneled into hidden hands?
Some how, I don't think that these FTX people are as dumb as they would like us to believe they are.

Whenever there is a case of fraud of massive amounts of money, you have to ask yourself, where did the money go?

Then I saw this:

Greatest trade ever? Citadel’s $16 billion haul smashes hedge fund records

While most investors took a hit last year, Citadel did exceptionally well. They even beat out the "big short" guy.

“[Citadel’s $16 billion profit] even surpasses [John] Paulson’s 2007 gain, which has been described as ‘the greatest trade ever,’” Rick Sopher, chairman of LCH Investments, said in a press release on Monday. Paulson, an investor, made $15 billion in 2007 after he bet that the value of securities backed by subprime mortgages would collapse, an event that helped trigger the global financial crisis.

Wow, just wow! What are the chances there's a connection to FTX?

One Man Connects FTX, Citadel and the Crypto Market Crash

Many investors are pointing to the similarities between FTX and Citadel. One of many common threads between the two companies is that of Brett Harrison. Who is Harrison? And how does he connect one of Wall Street’s most controversial hedge funds with one of crypto’s most controversial exchanges?

Before moving into his position at FTX, Harrison spent two years at Citadel Securities, Griffin’s market-maker company. Here, Harrison took on two roles — as head of exchange-traded fund (ETF) technology and head of semi-systematic technology. In these roles, Harrison would lead Citadel Securities teams in managing quantitative trading strategies and increasing the company’s profits through optimization. These skills would lend themselves favorably to Harrison as he departed Citadel Securities — right in the middle of its controversial role in the GameStop (NYSE:GME) saga — for a job at FTX.US. Harrison would become the first president of the U.S.-based company, reuniting the executive with Sam Bankman-Fried for the first time since the pair worked at Jane Street together.

There are a couple of details that I find especially interesting about Brett Harrison:

He left FTX about 1-month before their bankruptcy.

Harrison jumped ship just over a month before the company’s precarious financial situation became public knowledge, stepping away from his role and playing advisor to the soon-bankrupt company.

He went on to attempt to start his own crypto exchange, EDX markets. EDX, hmmm

He is attempting to raise funds for a new crypto-trading software startup — one that would provide optimized trading for larger investors. Meanwhile, Citadel Securities has made an investment in this space, backing crypto exchange EDX Markets.

From the looks of it, EDX hired some investing talent, but hasn't seemed to take off. Gee, I wonder why?

edxmarkets.com...

a reply to: IndieA

They didn’t actually have much liquid assets.

The problem is, they were leveraging their own coin to derive value to make trades.

So once it became evident they weren’t solvent, the value of their coin dropped, and all the coins became essentially worthless.

I'm sure the NSA has a pile of documentation showing government political money laundering using FTX. It's likely some republicans and most certainly the DNC knowing how good they are at organized crime. It's the same people with the most elaborate election fraud organization Joe Biden lovingly and publicly referred to.

It takes big money to stay entrenched in government and a lot of graft and debauchery to keep it sustaining.

FTX was just another lucrative avenue among many others to make it keep going.

If the NSA could be 100 percent audited of ALL domestic and foreign records, people would then see just how corrupt it all really is including how corrupt and perverted the NSA is because of its poor and dishonorable pompous leadership.

a reply to: IndieA

One possibly that that money has gone to Ukraine.

CNN would like to know:

Do you have money tied up in FTX? Share your story

Personally, I know very few people with crypto investments, and none that did business with FTX.

Sam Bankman-Fried gave almost 40 million dollars to Democrat candidates and democrat political action committees.

originally posted by: jjkenobi
Sam Bankman-Fried gave almost 40 million dollars to Democrat candidates and democrat political action committees.

Well, that accounts for less than 2% of the missing funds.

I seriously think that investigators need to look at the investments that Alameda Research made and the players on the other end of the major losing investments.
Could be nothing, but there's potential that there could be something.

Prosecutors say Sam Bankman-Fried tried to obscure his crimes with Robinhood’s stock

Shady claims.

Federal prosecutors said FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s efforts to control about $500 million worth of Robinhood shares last year indicates steps the former crypto entrepreneur has taken to “obscure” his alleged crimes. Prosecutors have since seized the stock and other assets totaling more than $700 million after Bankman-Fried laid claim to the shares saying he legitimately bought them and needed the money to defend against the criminal charges he’s facing. In a letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan involving Bankman-Fried’s bail, prosecutors argued he should still be prevented from moving FTX assets.

Shady dealings:

authorities alleged he made contact with the former general counsel of FTX in what they said suggests witness tampering

Shady communications:

Prosecutors want to limit who Bankman-Fried can be in touch with from FTX and its sister hedge fund Alameda Research. They also want to restrict him from using encrypted messaging apps after he previously used them at FTX with the auto-delete feature turned on.

Sounds like we will likely get to find out who bailed BSF out after all.

Also on Monday, a federal judge granted numerous media organizations request to make public the names of individuals who co-signed Bankman-Fried’s bail. The judge paused his ruling until February 7 to allow time for Bankman-Fried’s attorneys to appeal his ruling given the “novel” legal issue in the case.

FTX Ask Politicans Who Received Bankman-Fried Donations to Return Money

It's looks like we could be up to around $93 million in campaign donations.

The announcement escalates a fight over as much as $93 million (according to the debtors' estimates) in political donations FTX made to an array of D.C. lawmakers and causes across the political spectrum. One in three members of the current U.S. congress received contributions from Bankman-Fried’s orbit, according to CoinDesk reporting. It was a monumental influence campaign that crossed party lines.

I wonder how those donations were spent.

Might be something worth investigating.

FTX to politicians: Give us back our donations or we’ll sue you

The company, which collapsed in November and is now at the center of a massive federal fraud investigation, said it was sending “confidential messages” to political figures, political action funds and other recipients as it seeks to claw back assets to repay its estimated 1 million creditors. In a statement on Sunday, FTX said the donations need to be returned by the end of the month. If they aren’t, FTX said it reserves the right to sue recipients.

“To the extent such payments are not returned voluntarily, the FTX Debtors reserve the right to commence actions before the Bankruptcy Court to require the return of such payments, with interest accruing from the date any action is commenced,” the statement reads. The company added that recipients who gave the funds to a third party, including a charity, aren’t off the hook.

a reply to: IndieA

A deepstate funding event )