Caroline Ellison, confidant of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, says the exchange’s trading arm, Alameda Research, paid bribes to the Chinese government to release a billion dollars.
In court transcripts reported by The Inner City Press Ellison, who is also the former CEO of Alameda, was questioned by US Attorneys (AUSA) about her chats with Bankman-Fried on the messaging app Signal.
Ellison reveals that Bankman-Fried insisted that all Signal chats be automatically deleted after a certain time, before admitting that Alameda paid Chinese entities to release $1 billion after being hit by money laundering investigation .
According to Inner City Press transcripts it states:
“AUSA: Did you speak in coded terms?
Ellison: Yes. When we gave China a lot of bribes, our accounts were frozen in a money laundering investigation.
AUSA: How much was frozen in China?
Ellison: $1 billion. Sam wanted to find ways to handle it.
AUSA: How were they thawed?
Ellison: Alameda paid bribes to Chinese government officials
[Lawyers for] SBF: Objection, move to strike.
Judge Kaplan: I will stop that.”
Ellison goes on to say that after exploring other options to try to free up the funds, FTX executives David Ma and Constance Wang, both Chinese, were able to communicate with officials.
According to Ellison, even though Wang did not agree with the idea, Ma passed along information to FTX that the funds could be unblocked if $100 million were sent to certain crypto addresses.
“Ellison: Sam said Ma found a way to unfreeze our accounts if we just sent $100 million to these crypto addresses. It was November 2021.
AUSA: Did you know who the recipient was?
Ellison: No
AUSA: Did you have a belief?
SBF lawyer: Objection!”
In March, Bankman-Fried was indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice for bribing Chinese officials with $40 million, significantly less than the $100 million Ellison described in her testimony.
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