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A Manhattan judge ripped Sam Bankman-Fried as a “remorseless” scammer obsessed with political power as he sentenced the fallen crypto mogul to 25 years in prison Thursday — five months after he was found guilty of stealing more than $8 billion of funds from customers of his now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Judge Lewis Kaplan said the 32-year-old convicted fraudster “presented himself as the good guy” all in favor of “appropriate regulation of the crypto industry” — but it was just an “act.” “He did it because he wanted to be a hugely, hugely political influential person in this country,” Kaplan...

Sam Bankman-Fried's defense has filed a collection of letters from interested parties on Tuesday asking for leniency for the former FTX CEO - who is being sentenced this week. A friend of his from his MIT days said 'vegan' Bankman-Fried would be 'an asset to society' if given a lenient sentence, in the new court documents. 'Sam felt deeply for every living being, farm animals included - so much so that he adhered to a vegan diet and convinced several others in our living group to become vegan, too. He took every actionable step he could to reduce suffering,' the...

Moscow has been on a drive to replace the use of the US dollar in international trade, but there are barrels of Russian oil stuck at sea due to issues with paying in alternative currencies. Shipments of Russian Sokol grade crude oil to state-owned Indian Oil Corp, or IOC, have been delayed by payment issues, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing two sources familiar with the matter. The seller is the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft. The problem arose because Rosneft unit selling the oil hasn't been able to open a bank account in the United Arab Emirates to receive payments...

As technology gets more sophisticated, so do scammers. As bad actors adapt to the times, cryptocurrency scams are becoming a bigger problem, duping Americans out of huge sums, the Better Business Bureau said. In its annual Scam Tracker report, the BBB said investment and cryptocurrency scams were the “riskiest” type of scam in 2023. Scammers are using people’s general lack of understanding about cryptocurrency to their advantage, the Bureau said, promising huge returns on investment for purchasing Bitcoin. One victim, who shared her story, said she came upon a cryptocurrency scam while watching a YouTube video about Bitcoin investments. People...

I imagine life can often feel pretty difficult for today’s high school students. On top of dealing with classic teenage drama like homework, hormones, pimples, parents, driving, dating, university selection, and more, students these days have to contend with a host of new challenges. They suffered long periods of brutal Covid lockdowns. Active shooter drills are a normal part of student life. And, of course, there’s the nonstop anxiety and peer pressure of social media. Plus, on top of everything else, students today have also been force-fed some pretty bizarre ideas. Classical literature, advanced mathematics, and hard sciences have taken...

Longtime Stanford University professors Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried — the parents of Sam Bankman-Fried — were sued by the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency company FTX on Monday. In the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Delaware, the couple is accused of using FTX funds to enrich themselves and give to their “pet causes,” including millions of dollars in donations to Stanford. The lawsuit alleges that both Bankman and Fried “fraudulently transferred and misappropriated” tens of millions of dollars in total from FTX. They were also given a 30,000-square-foot $16.4 million home in the Bahamas and a $10 million cash gift by...

Critics are accusing the DOJ of sweeping additional charges against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried under the rug, after prosecutors said he would not face a second trial for campaign finance violations following his conviction last month. In a letter filed on Friday night in federal court in Manhattan, prosecutors said the 'strong public interest' in a prompt resolution of the case outweighed the benefits of a second trial. In his letter to the court, US Attorney Damian Williams noted that prosecutors introduced evidence about all of the dropped charges during Bankman-Fried's monthlong first trial, where he was found guilty on...

Changpeng Zhao, the founder of Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, pleaded guilty to money laundering violations, the government said on Tuesday, a stunning blow to the most powerful and influential figure in the global crypto industry. Binance itself also pleaded guilty and agreed to pay $4.3 billion in fines and restitution [and much, much more]

The founder of FTX used executives as cut-outs for donations, prosecutors allege... That Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and former chief executive of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX that recently filed for bankruptcy, was aggressively using campaign donations as part of a campaign to woo Washington toward his vision of cryptocurrency regulation was no secret — nor was it a secret that other FTX executives quickly became some of the country’s biggest political donors to both Republicans and Democrats, especially those who work on financial regulation. But a new federal criminal indictment alleges that things may have been even simpler than they...

New emails show officials at the Department of Homeland Security created a Stanford University “disinformation” group that censored Americans’ speech before the 2020 election, according to a House Judiciary Committee report exclusively obtained by The Post.

On Thursday, Sam Bankman-Fried was properly convicted for stealing $8 billion from customers. I wonder why brokers haven’t been punished for promoting FTX since they don’t appear to have properly researched the company? For decades, the media, politicians, bureaucrats, the United Nations, scientists, educators, entertainers, and others have been running con games that dwarf the FTX scheme; so where’s their trial and conviction? Most notably, they’ve indoctrinated the public with the lie that the science is settled that humans and our use of natural resources cause temperatures and sea levels to rise, which in turn cause storms to be more...

Hundreds of protesters demanding a cease-fire in Gaza swarmed Philadelphia's 30th Street Station this evening... An Iraqi military source tells Russia's RIA Novosti Agency that two drones attacked a US military base in northern Iraq... Crypto-currency financier Sam Bankman-Fried found guilty by a federal jury... There's been an almost unanimous vote in the United Nations General Assembly calling for the US to end its embargo on Cuba... The US House approving an aid package for Israel... US politics new polling from "The Messenger/HarrisX" showing President Trump winning a two-way or a four-way contest.... Tucker Carlson visiting Wikileaks founder Julian Assange...

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a crypto licensing bill on Friday, set to take effect in July 2025. Considered California's answer to New York's "BitLicense," the Digital Financial Assets Law faced heavy industry criticism but was passed by the U.S. state's Assembly in September 2022. The law requires California's Department of Financial Protection (DFPI) and Innovation to create a regulatory framework for crypto. The framework includes a licensing regime and gives the department enforcement and rulemaking authority over the sector. The DFPI also gets an 18-month implementation period to ensure "the adopted regulatory framework can be thoughtfully tailored to address...

The suspect in the shooting of a beloved father-of-four in Portland is a futures fund manager with a weighty arrest history - who also jets around the country giving blockchain lectures at conventions. Geoffrey Edward Hammond, 46, runs Aequantium LLC, claims to be of Australian descent, and also comes from a family of entrepreneurs with a $125million fortune. For unknown reasons, Hammond also changed his named from Jeffrey Edward Mandalis in recent years, court records show. He was driving a black Mercedes Benz and stopped in front of the Moxy Hotel in Portland, blocking traffic, last week. After getting into...

Tom Brady was paid $55 million for doing about a week’s worth of work total over a three-year period by disgraced cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, according to a bestselling author. Michael Lewis, who wrote “Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon,” told CBS’ “60 Minutes” that the former FTX head Bankman-Fried, whose federal trial on fraud and money laundering charges is set to begin in Manhattan on Tuesday, splurged on endorsements from Brady, Stephen Curry, and Larry David. Bankman-Fried, who has pleaded not guilty, oversaw a $32 billion empire that collapsed after his firm allegedly used customer...

With the so-called "King of Crypto" about to go on trial for multiple fraud charges, one British man tells how the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's company lost him a fortune. Until the final collapse, Sunil Kavuri hoped that Sam Bankman-Fried could turn things around. The King of Crypto's empire was faltering but while others panicked, Kavuri remained calm. Experience in trading for banks and investing his money in crypto made him hardened to market dramas. Plus Bankman-Fried - the self-appointed saviour of crypto - kept telling the world that everything would be fine. But then the message popped up on...

New report from industry researchers finds that 95 percent of the once-hyped crypto assets have hit rock-bottom valuation NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, once vaunted as a revolution in crypto and digital art, are largely worthless. Upon analysis of 73,257 NFT collections, the authors found that 69,795 have a market cap of zero Ether (ETH) The study estimates that some 23 million investors own these tokens of no practical use or value. What’s more, supply vastly outstripped demand for NFTs. Just 21 percent of the collections included in the study can claim full ownership, meaning around four out of every five...

As a scorching cover story in BusinessWeek reveals, Barbara Fried and Joseph Bankman didn't just raise a criminal, but actively took part in running FTX and enjoying the spoils of the fraud. They regularly turned up in the company's offices and were included on important emails, and, most critically, flexed their prestige to open doors in Silicon Valley and Democratic power circles for their son. Meanwhile, these two advocates for the poor helped themselves to a $16 million luxury villa in the Bahamas and $10 million in cash—paid for by FTX customers. ronically, Bankman-Fried reportedly plans to invoke an "advice...

Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty Tuesday to an amended indictment alleging fraud and money laundering conspiracy charges, appearing in court for the first time since his bail was revoked and he was sent to a Brooklyn jail to await trial. Lawyers for the former crypto billionaire, who is vegan, said the detention center is not accommodating his diet and failing to regularly dispense his prescription Adderall. “He’s literally now subsisting on bread and water, which are the only things he’s served that he can eat, and sometimes peanut butter,” his attorney, Mark Cohen, told the court. Magistrate Judge Netburn said...

On Monday, prosecutors charged disgraced former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried with seven counts of fraud and money laundering, alleging he had stolen over $100 million in customer funds to make contributions to political campaigns. Bankman-Fried was originally indicted for conspiracy to make unlawful campaign contributions in 2022, however, prosecutors dropped that charge in order to ensure the Bahamas allowed for his extradition back to the United States. The superseding indictment stays true to that agreement, and does not include that charge. According to Reuters, the US Attorney's Office in Manhattan filed a superseding indictment on Monday evening, accusing him of...