FTX to clawback $71.5 million from Bankman-Fried’s NGO

Lawyers of the defunct crypto exchange, FTX, now argue that founder Sam Bankman-Fried commingled customer funds for “personal aggrandizement” to garner influence for himself.

FTX targets life science investments

According to court documents filed by FTX attorneys on July 19, customer funds worth $71.5 million transferred to Sam Bankman-Fried’s Life Science-focused NGO qualifies as recoverable assets and should be clawed back.

FTX lawyers wrote to a bankruptcy court that Bankman-Fried’s “sham non-profit organization” Latano and the FTX Foundation received millions from Alameda and FTX accounts. These funds were commingled user funds, lawyers asserted. 

The filing claims that the Bahamas-based Latano science fund and the FTX foundation invested this $71.5 million in life science companies like Lumen Bioscience and 4J Therapeutics between February-October 2022.

Latano operated as a non-profit organization domiciled in the Bahamas and founded by Sam Bankman-Fried. The FTX Foundation was organized as the philanthropic division of SBF’s crypto empire, donating tens of thousands to millions of dollars toward so-called altruistic purposes.

Furthermore, attorneys argued in court filings that these investments only served “Bankman-Fried’s aggrandizement,” propping up his social capital and popularity among politicians and institutional investors.

Following SBF’s group of companies collapsed in November 2022, reports said FTX donated millions of dollars to political candidates to curry favor from Washington policymakers. 

John Ray III’s FTX hunts down misappropriated FTX funds

The bankrupt crypto exchange under CEO John J. Ray III continues to track down missing company funds as administrators move to fill up a staggering $8.7 billion debt hole. In June, the current management announced that it had recovered $7 billion in customer funds. 

New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art also agreed to return over half a million dollars in donations received from Bankman-Fried’s FTX in March and June 2022. 

Administrators also filed a lawsuit against former Hillary Clinton aide and K5 Global co-owner Michael Knives, seeking to recover $700 million in investments. The lawsuit alleges that Bankman-Fried signed off on transfers to K5 Global as payment for access to the company’s political connections and global network.