i think if you think that s what a brilliant coder looks like. i mean, this is the, you know, the image that s painted of him in silicon valley, that they don t have to wear a suit and tie to be convincing. in fact the guy who looks like he s been sitting in front of a computer all day. more compelling. he doesn t need to worry about all the other stuff. except that you want to be sure he has the back up, the procedures and policies in place to make sure the money you re giving him is going to the right place and from the outset, it did not. ron, give me an explainer on what ftx was. this company, that exchange billed according to sbf, as the safest place to put your money. the safest place to invest your crypto. and this goes back to your earlier question of gretchen about regulation.
for venture investments and for loans to himself and other ftx executives. all the while he continued to make misleading statements about the financial condition and risk management. even in november 2022 faced with billions of dollars in customer withdrawal requests that ftx could not fulfill, he mislead investors from whom he sought still more money to plug the multibillion dollar holes he created. his brazen scheme finally came to an end when ftx, alameda, and their tangled web filed for bankruptcy in november. that collapse has had far reaching consequences for customers, investors and counterparties. and our investigation into those consequences, those individuals and entities involved remains ongoing. but one immediate take away from
complaint, that veneer wasn t just thin. it was also fraudulent. because in reality, from ftx s inception in 2019, bankman-fried began secretly diverting funds to alameda research and as alleged he misused those funds to make venture investments, lavish real estate purchases and large political donations. his claims about ftx s sophisticated risks controls and other customer protections were simply bogus. similarly, his representation staff investors and trading customers concerning alameda were also part of that carefully crafted vee near. he claimed alameda was just another customer with no special privileges at ftx, but in truth,
our indictment that we ve unsealed today, please let us know. to any person, entity, or political campaign that has received stolen customer money, we ask that you work with us to return that money to the innocent victims. and to anyone who participated in wrong doing at ftx or alameda and has not yet come forward, i would strongly encourage you to come see us before we come see you. now, let me say a word about our partners at the fbi, the sec, and the cftc. the women and men of the fbi are some of the finest public servants in this country. and they have been with us since day one in this investigation and there is no one, no one better to work with. i want to thank the brilliant lawyers at the sec and cftc. this investigation is complex and sprawling. we embrace that kind of challenge here in the southern
industry at the moment and crypto has fought very hard so that it would not be a regulated industry. there s a battle among people, is it a security? if so, then it s covered by the securities and exchange commission. they re alleging fraud. they re alleging he defrauded investors. so we had very big, powerful, supposedly smart institutional investors who put money into ftx. how was he able to pull the wool over their eyes? these smart people who know what they re investing in? supposed to to be smarter than the rest of us. that s a good question. it is so much egg on their face. we ve got venture capitalists, very well-known, billions of dollars under management who were apparently hoodwinked by this guy. you ve seen him in the t-shirt and shorts. how persuasive is he?