| Bankman-Fried
Bribed China
via Thai
Prostitute
With Sam
Trabucco
Laughing
Crypto Creeps
by
Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book
Substack
LITERARY SDNY,
Oct 11 -- Eleventh day of
October and worlds collided,
in the SBF trial. Caroline
Ellison was on direct
examination for the second day
when she was asked if she and
Sam ever used coded language,
like in a Mafia movie or a
recent SDNY felon in
possession case, Instagram
messages with euphemisms for a
gun.
Yes,
she said - about the Chinese
bribe.
She went
on to describe one billion
dollars in FTX funds -- well,
really FTX customer's pilfered
funds - getting frozen on two
exchanges in China. How to get
it unfrozen? Sam wanted it
done, effective altruism be
damned. Through a David Ma a
bribery plan was
hatched.
$150
million in payments to Chinese
government officials, through
the accounts of Thai
prostitutes. You can never be
too careful, when saving
future generations, as Sam or
the UN might say. The UN and
its boss were adept at taking
Chinese bribes. Worlds were
colliding.
Another
FTX employee named Handi,
whose father was himself a
Chinese government officials
and apparently one of the
(few?) clean ones, opposed the
payment of the bribes. And who
on Signal mocked her, as
having her father "immediately
turn us all in"?
It was Sam
Trabucco, the co-CEO of
Alameda Research at the time.
Trabucco, who some nicknamed
Tabasco (like Trump's lawyer
in the first SDNY E. Jean
Carroll case) had neither been
charged nor appeared without
notice in court to plead
guilty, like Caroline and Gary
and Nishad and most recently
Ryan Salame.
Would
Trabucco be coming in to
testify with a use-immunity
deal, like Adam Yedidia? There
was one more
get-out-of-jail-free card in
the deck, prosecutors had
said.
Who would
get it?
More on this on
Substack here
More book sample
on Substack here.
Extended on Patreon here.
Book here
***
Your
support means a lot. As little as $5 a month
helps keep us going and grants you access to
exclusive bonus material on our Patreon
page. Click
here to become a patron.
Feedback:
Editorial [at] innercitypress.com
SDNY Press Room 480, front cubicle
500 Pearl Street, NY NY 10007 USA
Mail: Box 20047, Dag
Hammarskjold Station NY NY 10017
Reporter's mobile (and weekends):
718-716-3540
Other, earlier Inner City Press are
listed here,
and some are available in the ProQuest
service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
Copyright 2006-2023 Inner City
Press, Inc. To request reprint or other
permission, e-contact Editorial [at]
innercitypress.com
|
,
