Caroline Ellison, former romantic partner of embattled FTX founder Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried and former CEO of Alameda Research, stated in his testimony before the court that SBF bribed Chinese officials for millions of dollars to unfreeze funds blocked in local exchanges.
In his Oct. 11 testimony, Ellison said there were $1 billion in funds blocked in China and that to access them, Alameda paid a $150 million bribe to Chinese government officials.
AUSA: How much was frozen in China?
Ellison: $1 billion. Sam wanted to find ways to deal with it.
AUSA: How were they thawed?
Ellison: Alameda paid a bribe to Chinese government officials
SBF: Objection, move on to strike.
Judge Kaplan: I will remove it
The funds, which belonged to Alameda Research, were frozen on cryptocurrency exchanges Huobi and OKX following a 2021 money laundering investigation opened by Chinese authorities.
Ellison testified that Bankman-Fried ordered her and other FTX employees to delete all related messages sent through the encrypted messaging app Signal.
However, before bribing Chinese officials, Ellison said they tried to hire a local lawyer in China who could help with negotiations with the government.
After attempts with lawyers failed, Ellison claimed that Bankman-Fried attempted to use wallets from "other people's accounts" to access the funds without success. This included those who turned out to be Thai sex workers.
Ellison said: “At OKX, we created several accounts using the IDs of different people who I think were Thai prostitutes, and we basically tried to get our main account to lose money and those other accounts to make money, making very unbalanced transactions between the two. accounts so that those other accounts could earn money and withdraw it.”
Related: Sam Bankman-Fried aspired to become US president, says Caroline Ellison
When asked how the accounts were finally unfrozen, Ellison said he thought they were unfrozen after Alameda paid the bribe.
According to a post on
Oh, you have to (come back tomorrow), now for the questioning of Bankman-Fried's lawyer, Mark Cohen, which started very slowly and disorganized at the end of today's session. We'll see tomorrow. My goal is to be tweeting it live, starting at 9:30 am https://t.co/mUdG7ST2qm
— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) October 12, 2023
SBF faces 13 charges. The first seven counts of fraud are being heard in his current trial, which began Oct. 3 and do not include charges of bribing Chinese officials.
However, in a second trial scheduled for March 2024, he faces six additional charges, including bank fraud and foreign bribery conspiracy charges. Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Cointelegraph reporters are in New York covering the trial. As the saga unfolds, Check here for the latest updates.
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