[HN Gopher] Why hasn't Sam Bankman-Fried been arrested yet?
___________________________________________________________________
Why hasn't Sam Bankman-Fried been arrested yet?
Author : jasonhansel
Score : 286 points
Date : 2022-12-02 19:07 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nymag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (nymag.com)
| jmyeet wrote:
| The real world doesn't work like Law and Order. There will be an
| investigation before a grand jury. Evidence will be collected and
| a case built. Evidence and witnesses will be subpoenaed.
|
| At the end of that will come a criminal indictment (unless the
| grand jury declined to issue an indictment, which is rare).
|
| At that point the investigation is over. You don't indict then
| build a case. Federal prosecutions don't work that way.
|
| This is a complicated case because it involves a lot of money, a
| tenuous paper trail, lots of communications and several
| jurisdictions. SBF may need to be extradited and whatever court
| hears that case will need a strong case. A failure to extradite
| Matt effectively kill the whole case.
|
| This fraud is so egregious that the US government won't let this
| stand. Stealing customer assets is as open and shut as a case
| gets.
| bombcar wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33835220
|
| Because Madoff's lawyer says he should shut up, and he isn't, so
| why not play out some line and let the fish set his own hook?
| Arresting him would just make him clam up.
| speby wrote:
| Short answer is, like anything in these cases, it has
| complications and an investigation unit is needed first in order
| to collect data and evidence, assess which, if any, laws were
| broken and file an appropriate warrant for arrest. Until that
| process happens, "innocent until proven guilty" applies here.
| Emphasis on the "proven" part as that is how our justice system
| is intended to be. Which also means "not fast"
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I strongly suspect it was because he didn't embarrass any
| _really_ rich people.
|
| Madoff (and Holmes) embarrassed (worse than ripping off) some
| very influential people. Jeffrey Epstein could have _really_ done
| it, but he 's boating with Charon, right now...
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| Holmes embarrassed the Patron Saint of Chaos. Prison is getting
| off light.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Article provides a pretty comprehensive reply to that question.
| Can't wait to see SBF in jail, but it will take time.
| lamontcg wrote:
| He stole enough money to be considered respectable.
| tedunangst wrote:
| Are there any long bets sites where I can place a bet on SBF
| being arrested within two years?
| creaghpatr wrote:
| Should be a question for Good Judgement Open, would be
| interested to see what superforecasters predict.
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| I've always imagined that piss enough people off like SBF did
| would increase your chances of accidentally falling down the
| stairs, or for it to happen to those around you (pay us first or
| we start on your loved ones).
|
| To be clear, I don't wish death on SBF, but presumably at least
| some of the people with money are dangerous. The case of Melissa
| caddick in aus (stole 40m, disappeared, only her foot was found)
| seems similar, but currently there's no evidence of foul play.
| exabrial wrote:
| Because we're a nation of laws, not a nation of knee jerk
| reactions and reactionary justice.
|
| This a dumb question to ask.
| throwaway5959 wrote:
| Wild how if you're caught selling weed you're immediately
| arrested but if you're caught stealing billions of dollars you
| get to give interviews from the beach.
| ppeetteerr wrote:
| I hear a lot of people in the crypto sphere talk about regulation
| being a bad thing. The reality is that most regulation aims at
| financial institutions such as these while also protecting the
| consumer.
|
| Will additional regulation have a negative effect on the value of
| crypto? It's likely. However, the tech itself will continue to
| provide value to those who use it to circumvent the banking
| system. For instance, you can still exchange coins and store them
| in cold, personal wallets.
|
| The fallout of this collapse will be significant and I hope what
| emerges thereafter will be a more sensible approach to crypto and
| more stable value.
| DennisP wrote:
| I think what a lot of crypto people want to avoid is misguided
| regulation on decentralized protocols. But regulation that
| makes it less likely that central exchanges will rug you? I
| don't think many people mind that much.
|
| SBF himself was lobbying for regulations that many people
| claimed would have outlawed defi in the US, pushing people to
| use outfits like FTX instead. People certainly do object to
| that.
| ppeetteerr wrote:
| Everyone wants to avoid misguided regulation. I don't think
| that's unique to crypto. What I hear is more of a blanket
| statement that regulation of any sort is bad, which feels
| naive and misguided on the part of the consumer.
| _cs2017_ wrote:
| Could you ELI5: what US federal crime(s) can one reasonably
| suspect SBF of having committed?
|
| Also, how likely is it that he will never be convicted of
| violating US federal laws? (For any of the numerous possible
| reasons: he never did anything wrong, or it's too hard to prove,
| or US lacks jurisdiction, or due to political connections, or
| prosecutors don't prioritize this type of cases, etc.)
| stefan_ wrote:
| Wire fraud, as always.
| [deleted]
| scrubs wrote:
| Complexity is an enabling friend for criminals and the
| incompetent. And lobbyists. The executive branch has got work
| with the legislative branch to eliminate ways to draw out
| prosecution to play for time.
|
| Second, consider this comment filed in the original article:
|
| "He hasn't been prosecuted yet because he was a major contributor
| to the democrat party."
|
| Another comment made reference to his alleged Jewish heritage.
|
| Beyond this unwarranted untrue generalization, there's an
| interesting underlying emotional component to the hypercritical
| hyper divide in many big stories like this: self created, self
| imagined victimization. When we contextualize the world this way
| we see ourselves as victims from which we manufacture moral
| outrage, virtue signaling, and even a kind of perverse machismo
| that one had the courage to call out the truth eg he's a
| democratic funder and the rules don't apply to him ...but they do
| to us the hardworking guys trying to do the right thing.
|
| Folks, it's a dead end. The linked article I think is much more
| helpful and insightful.
| fear_and_coffee wrote:
| danso wrote:
| Putting aside the circumstances specific to SBF/FTX (being in the
| Bahamas, involving crypto, SBF's political connections, etc),
| there's not much reason to expect that SBF should have been
| arrested 5-6 weeks after FTX's collapse:
|
| - Enron blew up in Dec. 2001. It wasn't until mid-July 2004 that
| Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay were finally arrested.
|
| - The WSJ expose on Theranos was in 2015, Holmes wasn't indicted
| until 2018.
|
| - Martin Shkreli's MSBM collapsed by 2012; he wasn't indicted
| until 2015.
|
| Bernie Madoff is a notable exception: he was arrested 3 days
| after his Ponzi was revealed. But it's not comparable at all to
| SBF's situation: Madoff was arrested after he _confessed
| privately_ to his own family; his sons immediately went to the
| police.
|
| Whether SBF is getting exceptionally soft treatment will be
| easier to discern in retrospect, but it might be many months or
| even years before he's indicted.
| [deleted]
| jackmott wrote:
| jasonhansel wrote:
| This is basically what the OP is saying: it's not something
| specific to SBF or related to his political connections, but a
| more general issue in prosecuting white-collar crimes.
| dmix wrote:
| OP is saying it's a natural side effect of this sort of
| complicated crime, it's not just an issue with _how_ it 's
| prosecuted.
|
| Although rerouting the massive amounts of money + human
| capital in non-violent crimes (drugs) to white collar would
| help... and probably pay for itself in recovered money (via
| tax revenue and reduced government corruption).
|
| That probably still wouldn't result in SBF-type criminals
| being arrested right away though.
| ouid wrote:
| it was all intentionally routed away after 9/11 under the
| guise of improving homeland security.
| dmix wrote:
| Reminds me of that old Immortal Technique clip:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gGLI9ifEzw
| jasonhansel wrote:
| I also think it's a problem of underinvestment. The NYC
| police department alone has 5 times the budget of the SEC.
| That seems disproportionate. If we spent more money on
| enforcement and hired more investigators, I suspect these
| investigations would be able to proceed much faster.
| enahs-sf wrote:
| Worth noting the SEC is a civil regulatory agency, not a
| criminal one.
| UweSchmidt wrote:
| It would be nice if things could go a little faster. 3 years
| are a significant percentage of the average remaining life of
| an adult. The onus should be on the legal system to hurry up a
| little and streamline the process; these 3 years are quite
| unpleasant if you are accused of a crime, and have to wait and
| prepare for a trial, no? If you are guilty the time should be
| counted as served sentence (maybe at 50%), the innocent should
| be compensated for unreasonable extra waiting time.
| shortstuffsushi wrote:
| It would be great if these things were faster - in fact, we
| cared so much to make it so that it's included as part of our
| 6th amendment. In practice, it's almost exclusively not the
| case, even if higher profile cases. Two bits of personal
| anecdata, a death of a friend's brother due to fentanyl lead
| to the arrest of a drug dealer (with priors, and found in
| possession of illegal weapons). Open and closed case, right?
| Still took a year. Similarly, the exact same thing happened
| to my brother's friend - three years on, the trial just
| concluded. Several bigger cases in my area, the Rittenhouse
| and more recently Brooks cases also took a year.
|
| I'm not sure what you mean with your second half though, are
| you suggesting detaining people during this period and pro-
| rating their sentence and/or paying them? Or are you saying
| that they should wait outside of jail, but still have it
| counted towards their sentence? I don't quite follow exactly.
| Edit: seems the latter. I'm not sure my opinion, having a
| case looming over you seems potentially difficult, especially
| if you're later found innocent, but should the government
| (/citizens) foot the bill for that?
| UweSchmidt wrote:
| It's mostly a thought experiment but the general idea is to
|
| - consider the actual effects on someone to be involved in
| a legal process; for lawyers it's just a workday but for
| people it's heavy to be accused of a crime and to wait for
| something awful (jail) to happen.
|
| - define some time reasonable time constraints for
| everything, in order to give some incentives for the
| process to speed up. Prosecutors could be measured by how
| efficient cases go, and paying out some money could be an
| option.
| spfzero wrote:
| I think living wherever you want and spending millions of
| other people's dollars for three years is not 50% as bad as
| being in prison. It's better than most innocent people get to
| do _out_ of prison.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| "The wheels of Justice turn slowly... but they turn."
| briantakita wrote:
| Still waiting for Hunter Biden's indictment for his
| various...ahem...improprieties...and who is this "big guy"
| who got the 10%?
|
| SBF was a large contributor to the DNC...so it sounds like he
| has some political favors to exploit. The best we hope for is
| an indictment with a Presidential pardon after this whole
| matter is memory-holed by the media.
| cm2187 wrote:
| The speed, torque and direction highly depend on which side
| of the political aisle are the DoJ and the defendant.
| coldtea wrote:
| Except when they don't, which generally is the case for the
| rich. They just need to arrest some schmuck every now and
| then to give they illusion that it turns for them too.
| [deleted]
| ALittleLight wrote:
| They turn slowly for some crimes. If I was to find the
| prosecutor or judge who would one day be involved in
| indicting SBF and punch them in the face, I bet the wheels
| would turn pretty quick for me.
| retconn wrote:
| >This is almost off-topic. Skip if that bugs you
|
| No, you're completely on topic : the phenomenon you
| describe of privatised systematic perpetrator defensive
| hurdles is called self regulation, which is precisely what
| SBF was most avidly lobbying for.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Well, in fairness, that's a very simple crime to prosecute
| :)
| ajross wrote:
| Right, because getting a judge to approve a warrant to
| arrest someone for assault is trivial if you have a
| witness, because that's the kind of thing that is clear and
| obvious.
|
| Even finding a lawyer capable of _writing_ a warrant
| application for fraud like FTX is difficult, partly because
| the evidence is hard to find and hard to understand and
| frankly just because financial criminal law is a mess. Add
| to that that if you mess that part up you jeopardize the
| whole case (because any evidence that you collect with a
| bad warrant becomes subject to being thrown out,
| obviously).
|
| No one wants to get that wrong just to get a perp walk.
| Remember that what people are demanding here isn't
| punishment, it's just "an arrest". People who are arrested
| spend a few hours (maybe a day or two) being held before
| arraignment and then walk right back out of the jail.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Right, because getting a judge to approve a warrant to
| arrest someone for assault is trivial if you have a
| witness, because that's the kind of thing that is clear
| and obvious.
|
| And, more to the point:
|
| (1) its easy to _convict_ on that kind of assault (delays
| are more often due to prosecutors not starting a case
| they dob't feel adequate confidence they can win than
| prosecutors being unable to meet the much lower bar of
| probable cause),
|
| (2) prosecuting on such a case early is much less likely
| to foreclose other charges or obstruct attempts to
| identify and action on other crimes or recoverable
| property tied to them.
| lesuorac wrote:
| > (2) prosecuting on such a case early is much less
| likely to foreclose other charges or obstruct attempts to
| identify and action on other crimes or recoverable
| property tied to them.
|
| Please go into this more.
|
| Lets say an omniscient person can come up with 40 charges
| that could be brought against SBF. You the prosecutor
| only know of 3 of them right now. Why can't you charge
| SBF for the 3 you have, convict them, and while SBF is in
| prison figure out the other 37? While SBFs in prison I
| bet its 1000% times harder for him to hide stuff from you
| too.
|
| With programming, it's commit early and commit often. Why
| is the prosector trying to make a giant pull request over
| 3 years to shove through in a year? Target the low
| hanging fruit for a quick commit and get the restitution
| process going.
| ajross wrote:
| Programming doesn't have a fifth amendment double
| jeopardy clause. Imagine if your debugger locked you out
| if you failed to fix the bug on your first try.
|
| Prosecutors are conservative because our justice system
| is (for very good reasons) tilted strongly _against_ the
| state, in favor of the accused. We 've collectively
| decided that it's better on the whole to have some
| criminals go without punishment than to tolerate innocent
| people in jail. (Pause while everyone points out that
| innocent people get locked up all the time, which is
| true, but it's still something the constitution is trying
| to prevent)
| _jal wrote:
| This is almost off-topic. Skip if that bugs you.
|
| It is interesting to think about the effect that coalitions
| of criminals have had on the criminal justice system.
|
| Impulsive face-punchers don't tend to have sophisticated
| attorneys, and at least many of them probably agree that
| face-punching should be illegal in general, even if they
| had their reasons in this case.
|
| Contrast with finance criminals. Many of them probably
| convince themselves they're in the right, and they have
| access to the best justice money can buy. So over time
| they've managed to raise the costs of prosecution so high
| that we see this - it takes multiple years to nail down a
| solid prosecution.
|
| There are other aspects of course - some financial crime
| really is difficult to prove. But what I mean is that if
| all the accounting frauds before Ken Lay had depended on
| overworked public defenders, prosecuting him would have
| been much simpler.
| cabaalis wrote:
| So it would seem safe to say that financial crimes can take a
| very long time to bring charges. Why is the smoking gun so
| buried?
| madrox wrote:
| This feels like the judicial equivalent of a product manager
| asking an engineer why hasn't the feature been shipped yet.
| Everyone's been talking about the PRD for over a week!
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Madoff was arrested after he confessed privately to his own
| family
|
| Including stating his imminent intent to surrender to
| authorities, he also admitted to massive fraud when interviewed
| by the FBI immediately after that, and before the arrest.
|
| SBF ain't in the same place as Madoff.
| jonas21 wrote:
| > _Bernie Madoff is a notable exception: he was arrested 3 days
| after his Ponzi was revealed. But it 's not comparable at all
| to SBF's situation: Madoff was arrested after he confessed
| privately to his own family; his sons immediately went to the
| police._
|
| Not only did he confess, saying it's "basically a giant Ponzi
| scheme," he also said that he planned to distribute the
| remaining $200-$300M in funds to family, friends, and employees
| in the next week.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| And -- as the article points out -- Madoff was in the United
| States when he confessed. I rather doubt SBF will ever
| voluntarily set foot on US soil again.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Isn't there a statute of limitations for these types of
| crimes? (Not sure for the US here, but...)
|
| If all the data is spread to the winds, if everyone hits
| ground, can they even file charges? I suppose so, but if
| there is no evidence pointing to wrongdoing...
|
| To be honest, I'm not even sure what he supposedly did
| wrong. He took investments, in an unregulated sector, and
| backed those investments and lost?
|
| If he were a bank, that's 100% legit. No bank I know of,
| has 100% of investor funds backed by anything. Even in
| Canada, land of give-a-fuck-sorta, there used to be a
| requirement for banks to have hard currency (gold, cash) in
| a vault somewhere, 5% worth of account holder's value,
| which was inspected annually by the government. Yet the
| last time I read the bank act, it was removed as a
| requirement.
|
| If banks don't need any sort of banking for account holders
| in CAD, why would an unregulated exchange need that?
|
| (Again, I can imagine there are all sorts of things I'm
| missing... but?!)
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Isn't there a statute of limitations for these types of
| crimes?
|
| For non-capital federal crimes, the basic rule is 5
| years, but there are exceptions.
| rabite wrote:
| The clock stops the minute that you step overseas, so as
| long as he's in the Bahamas there is no statute of
| limitations.
| bink wrote:
| Such as fleeing prosecution?
| mrosett wrote:
| Yes: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/question-
| tolling-sta...
| grey-area wrote:
| He bought a $16m house in his parents' names with company
| funds (fraud).
|
| He transferred customer funds to an unrelated hedge fund
| company (fraud).
|
| He created fake accounting systems to hide the fraud
| (fraud).
|
| He claimed to be making lots of money just to help others
| (morally reprehensible and a huge red flag).
|
| That people are still making excuses for him tells you
| how rotten this entire ecosystem is.
| smitty1110 wrote:
| That's what the US-Bahamas extradition treaty is for.
|
| Edit: The treaty itself: https://www.state.gov/wp-
| content/uploads/2019/05/94-922-Baha...
| _jal wrote:
| Wouldn't expect him to stay somewhere with extradition.
| Wasn't there a rumor that he tried to flee to Dubai?
|
| Morality aside, that's probably his best move, assuming
| he has enough of that $3B loan left to grease the exit.
| wmf wrote:
| Fleeing to Dubai might mess with his "it was just an
| honest mistake" PR tour.
|
| At least he's not (yet) borrowing Do Kwon's argument
| about being the victim of an unjustified witch hunt.
| notch656a wrote:
| Unless the PR tour is some weird plan to buy time while
| he gets his ducks in a row to arrange his escape and
| amass his assets.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _what the US-Bahamas extradition treaty is for_
|
| Which may also be why we aren't seeing a warrant. Maybe
| SBF is playing for sympathy. But maybe he's just
| delusional. If the latter is the case, there is no need
| to tip him off with a performative warrant.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Sympathy or presidential pardon. It is astonishing the
| sort of kid gloves he has been treated with so far in the
| liberal media. I am no conspiracy theorist but this is
| suspicious.
| tootie wrote:
| There are allegations that SBF "ingratiated" himself with
| the Bahamian government.
| godmode2019 wrote:
| Martin Shkreli cant be placed with those other people, no one
| lost any money.
|
| He was convicted on a technically by telling early investors
| that he already had investors. When at that point his start up
| had none.
| deaddodo wrote:
| That's not a technicality, that's literally fraud.
|
| It doesn't matter that an endeavor he followed through later
| paid back his initial investors, the act itself is literally
| fraud. Period.
|
| All you're doing is petty-fogging the issue.
| nostromo95 wrote:
| Charitably, I think what OP was getting at is that there
| was no pressure to arrest / prosecute Shkreli quickly
| because his actions hadn't in actuality physically or
| monetarily harmed people, unlike, e.g., Theranos.
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| Investors were but complaining, it was the state that was
| after him. It's obviously different from owing billions of
| dollars that don't exist anymore like Bankman did.
| ShivShankaran wrote:
| SBF will NOT go to jail. He is too politically connected and
| even his on/off gf is very deeply politically connected to MIT
| and other politicians. At this point its extremely naive to
| believe that he might get something more than a slap on the
| wrist, even if that.
|
| He was on the same event with Janet Yellen whose signature will
| be on all US currencies.
| spfzero wrote:
| Jeffrey Epstein was also very well connected. Sometimes those
| connections vanish into thin air to avoid guilt by
| association.
| loeber wrote:
| That's not quite true, there's plenty of precedent for fast
| prosecution. As an unfortunate example, take the Aaron Swartz
| case:
|
| - September 25, 2010: Swartz begins using MIT network to pull
| JSTOR articles.
|
| - Throughout September through December, a cat-and-mouse game
| ensues where JSTOR blocks access to certain MIT IPs, and then
| downloading starts again from a different range.
|
| - January 5, 2011: MIT locates the laptop in a closet that
| Swartz had been using.
|
| - January 6, 2011: Aaron Swartz is arrested.
|
| - July 11, 2011: Swartz is indicted by a federal grand jury.
|
| Additional indictments followed in November 2011 and September
| 2012. In Swartz's case, the judicial apparatus moved swiftly.
| As far as I understand, law enforcement became involved in late
| December 2010 or early January 2011. The timeline to arrest and
| indictment was short.
|
| I would expect to see a reasonably quick (i.e. on the order of
| months) indictment of SBF. While other posters are correct to
| point out that there's a huge morass of complexity and
| murkiness around FTX/Alameda, my view is that this creates not
| one, but several cases -- some of them very straightforward and
| where I'd surely expect the DOJ to put a preliminary case
| together in a few months.
| danso wrote:
| To add to what u/mikeyouse comment, I tried to limit
| comparisons to incidents involving financial/wire fraud,
| since they often require a longer/wider investigative scope,
| and, unfortunately, seem to have a much-too high standard
| when it comes to actual prosecution (e.g. 2008 financial
| crisis)
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Swartz wasn't arrested in January by the FBI for the
| downloading - but by MIT police for breaking and entering. He
| couldn't have been arrested by the Feds before the indictment
| or criminal complaint was filed, which didn't take place
| until 6 months later. I suspect you're right on the timing
| though, especially with all of the whining about how he
| hasn't been charged yet. It'll be a politically savvy move
| for the Feds to file something quickly here and then
| supersede it eventually when the full scope is clear.
| toss1 wrote:
| >> It'll be a politically savvy move for the Feds to file
| something quickly here and then supersede it eventually
| when the full scope is clear.
|
| That's likely true.
|
| However, it may also be a more savvy move to let SBF and
| other execs think little is pending in order to gather more
| information. Other than reputation of the justice system
| (which already has a justified slow reputation; "The wheels
| of justice turn slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine."),
| this might be the greater consideration...
|
| If they don't rapidly indict, it'll be interesting to see
| if SBF ever voluntarily returns to US territory before an
| indictment.
| loeber wrote:
| That's correct, though federal law enforcement was involved
| perhaps earlier than that account suggests. Swartz was
| initially arrested by the MIT Police and a member of the
| Secret Service. The United States Attorney Office was in
| touch with JSTOR almost immediately afterwards.
| (http://docs.jstor.org/summary.html)
|
| I agree with the final comment; I think the DOJ would be
| well-served by filing _something_ (and that should be
| pretty tractable, seeing the staggering scope of apparent
| misdeeds) to extradite SBF as quickly as possible, and then
| to file amended /superseded charges in the following 12-24
| months.
| tmaly wrote:
| building a case takes long time, especially if SBF has good
| lawyers.
| ktorvald wrote:
| Just another data point. Billy McFarland was arrested by FBI
| agents Monday following the Fyre Festival for defrauding
| investors. He did not confess prior to his arrest.
|
| Billy raised $20m with fake financials. SBF raised close to a
| $1B, and I'm sure he didn't disclose the fact that customer
| deposits flowed to a hedge fund he controlled exclusively.
|
| Harm caused to consumers and investors is just as obvious, if
| not more obvious in SBF's case, when compared to Billy's
| festival.
|
| https://youtu.be/pNS1khHWTmI
| _benedict wrote:
| Didn't Fyre Festival turn into a very public humanitarian
| crisis? I don't know that the two situations are comparable
| as a result.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > I don't know that the two situations are comparable as a
| result.
|
| Why or why not? Should the amount of publicity matter for
| the justice system? What distinguishes a "humanitarian
| disaster" from a bunch of rich kids having to sleep rough
| on a beach near a resort town for a few days?
| ineedasername wrote:
| I'm not sure it's the publicity that matters so much as
| the immediate threat to human life & safety. In society
| that tends to be prioritized over financial misdeeds with
| more ambiguous long term consequences.
| threeseed wrote:
| As a professional investor, if you invested money in FTX
| it is expected that you know the risks.
|
| No one reasonably expected Fyre Festival to turn out the
| way it did.
| ladon86 wrote:
| That might be a reasonable expectation if FTX only
| allowed deposits by accredited investors, but I don't
| think "professional investors" were the target audience
| of their Super Bowl ads starring Tom Brady.
|
| https://youtu.be/uymLJoKFlW8
| runarberg wrote:
| Same can be said of all Ponzi scheme, that doesn't make
| the crimes less severe or the harm caused to the innocent
| any less painful, and it certainly doesn't mean that the
| criminals should be able to escape justice.
| threeseed wrote:
| I never said that criminals should escape justice.
|
| Just saying that if you invest money in a stock you
| should expect that you may lose that money.
| empraptor wrote:
| my impression of prosecutors is that they are a
| narcissist bunch who are in that role because tough-on-
| crime reputation they earn by putting ppl in prison gives
| them a leg up in future political career. so more
| publicity a case gets and less resources the defendant
| has, more attractive the case is to prosecutors i would
| think.
| wahern wrote:
| State attorneys general and district attorney offices are
| much, much more mired in politics than the comparable
| Federal offices. The former are more often staging points
| for moving up the political ladder; whereas the Federal
| positions are more often filled by mid or late career
| legal lifers, and act as staging points for moving to the
| private sector, to judicial appointments, or retirement.
|
| That said, the SEC, which AFAIU would normally take the
| lead, is poorly staffed. The SEC leans heavily on
| automation, intimidation, and rapid plea deals in order
| to avoid resource intensive investigations and
| prosecutions; much more so than run-of-the-mill criminal
| cases that more immediately can benefit from the huge
| staffs at the FBI, ATF, DoJ, etc. So when prosecution and
| a prerequisite comprehensive investigation is clearly
| warranted and necessary, there seems to be considerable
| inconsistency in process and outcome. And that's before
| accounting for the fact that financial crimes can be very
| difficult to prove at trial, both factually and legally--
| just ask Donald Trump.
| ericmcer wrote:
| I am sure if there was a camp full of SBFs victims
| sleeping in tents after their crypto losses they would be
| acting much faster.
| legitster wrote:
| It's just money. Investment income at that.
|
| Putting human beings at actual risk is an order of
| magnitude worse and I don't know why that's even
| debatable.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| not at all: swindled people had to rebook flights home,
| sleep in an airport or maybe on site for maybe a day?
| ineedasername wrote:
| They were not, however, at risk of starvation or diseases
| commonly seen only in undeveloped parts of the world that
| lack sanitation infrastructure.
| [deleted]
| danso wrote:
| That's a great data point, especially because it reaffirms
| (at least for me, personally) how easy it is to lose track of
| even recent infamous history.
|
| Just skimming the Wikipedia entry, so maybe I'm missing
| something, but wasn't McFarland arrested 2 months after Fyre?
| This May 2017 [0] article, about a month after, describes
| McFarland still running his company as the first civil
| lawsuits are filed. This June 30 article [1] is about his
| arrest. It sounded like the civil suits against McFarland
| helped push along the wire fraud charge; AFAIK, SBF is named
| in a couple of investor suits so far, so it'll be interesting
| what things look like next month.
|
| [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/21/arts/music/fyre-
| festival-...
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/arts/music/billy-
| mcfarlan...
| jonstewart wrote:
| The harm may be obvious, but that's not the same thing as
| proving criminal guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Not sure
| why anyone would think FTX/Alameda would be as easy to
| investigate as the Fyre Festival.
|
| People don't get arrested when they've done something bad.
| People get arrested (for federal crimes) when a prosecutor
| gets a grand jury to believe there's probable cause they've
| committed a crime.
| dstein9 wrote:
| rcurry wrote:
| The wheels turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine. This is a
| major case and it will take time for various agencies to put all
| the pieces together.
| fundad wrote:
| Yeah our institutions are taking care of everything, just wait
| for the rest of your life.
| mikkergp wrote:
| "At the risk of stating the obvious, the reason Madoff was
| arrested so quickly is because he confessed to every element of
| criminal fraud -- including both the underlying scheme and his
| criminal intent. This meant that the FBI had both that confession
| and highly potent, admissible evidence of guilt in the form of
| testimony from his adult children (who had no apparent axe to
| grind)."
|
| Right, I mean, I'm not saying he's not guilty, but does anyone at
| this point really understand it deeply enough to file an arrest
| warrant? I understand the impatience emotionally, but not
| logically.
| pessimizer wrote:
| I was jailed for sitting on the sidewalk in front of my old
| high school when I was 18. The police were called on me by the
| vice-principal, who could see from his office that I was
| rolling cigarettes, and thought I was rolling joints. The
| police showed up, realized that the call was bad because it was
| obviously loose tobacco, and decided to charge me with
| "criminal trespassing" because it's a charge that the police
| can press _themselves_ without a complainant (the vice-
| principal was informed by others what had happened, would have
| never pressed charges, and was extremely regretful about it
| afterwards.) I spent the night in jail, and part of the next
| day, until my family could raise the money to bond me out
| (money completely lost; a bond, not a bail.) Luckily my uncle
| knew a bailbondsman personally, because as a loser black punk
| rocker teenager no other bailbondsman would take our money. If
| that hadn 't happened, I would have spent a week in jail
| waiting for my hearing. My entire relationship with my public
| defender took place walking down a hallway towards the
| courtroom, where he told me that I could take a plea bargain
| (i.e. plead guilty) in exchange for no time, no fine, no
| probation, and a removal from my record if I stayed out of any
| trouble for six months (and of course the opposite if sitting
| on the sidewalk went so badly for me again.) I took the plea
| bargain, which required me to admit to the crime and pay court
| costs.
|
| The reason SBF isn't arrested is because the people who would
| have to order him to be arrested relate to him personally, and
| coddle people like him as they would wish to be coddled
| themselves.
| flerchin wrote:
| Gah that's horrific.
| robocat wrote:
| Argh, that is so far outside of my reality that I have
| trouble understanding how such evil events happen in the USA
| -- I'm from New Zealand so I just have no frame of reference
| to understand.
|
| The closest I have experienced second-hand in authoritarian
| Cuba under Castro while I was visiting there, where I saw
| some residents arrested for nothing tangible, but they were
| released within 8 hours and they seemed blase about it.
|
| I have been arrested, but the police were respectful (it
| helps that I am a short white guy, and I was wearing a geek
| identity).
|
| If you ever visit Christchurch, contact me via HN, and I'll
| feed and put you up for some days, if you're keen.
| mindslight wrote:
| Don't worry - most people in the USA have trouble
| understanding that such evil events happen here, too.
|
| You've either been on the business end of the "justice"
| system, or you haven't. Paying "court fees" to fund your
| own persecution is the icing on the cake.
|
| And like, what happened to OP was pretty tame, all things
| considered. Nobody died. There wasn't months or years spent
| in prison. I don't think their life was drastically altered
| by it (but their personal world view certainly was). Nobody
| is going to the media with such a story, because it's not
| glaringly outrageous. Ask an attorney if OP would have a
| case against the police/state to rectify the injustice, and
| they'll just laugh. They're part of that system and above
| you, which is why even if you're paying them, they don't
| answer the phone after 5.
|
| IMO the first step to reform happening is the system
| admitting it is fallible. Plea bargains should be
| eliminated - either make the case or STFU. When a victim is
| found innocent or charges are dropped, they should be
| mechanically compensated for all of their expenses and
| damages - legal fees, time lost in jail/court, emotional
| distress from the kidnapping. That money should come out of
| the coffers of the department paying the gang of violent
| thugs that abused OP, and ultimately the taxpayers funding
| them. Right now these damages are funded as a perverse
| reverse lottery where the unlucky just get stuck with them.
| This certainly won't fix everything, but correctly defining
| responsibility is the first step.
|
| Alas, the disempowering mass media narrative we get is that
| the cops just need "more training" so perhaps they won't
| commit wanton second degree murder as much. Funny how the
| average citizen doesn't get a similar allowance.
| mikkergp wrote:
| I don't want SBF arrested for criminal trespass, I want him
| arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for
| the crimes he committed, and I don't want him getting off
| because of the need for a speedy trial, before we know what
| he did.
|
| Law enforcement should not act in bad ways to more people.
| syrrim wrote:
| You plead guilty precisely because you didn't do anything.
| The probability distribution for you was: high chance of
| getting off, low chance of getting a large punishment. The
| probability distribution for SBF if he pleads not guilty will
| be inverted: high chance of incarceration, low chance of
| walking. But the odds will likely be preferable to whatever
| deal he ends up being offered. Modelling the cops that booked
| you, their goal is to throw things at the wall and see what
| sticks. Whichever cops are currently gathering evidence
| against SBF will be thinking the opposite: they need to be
| very careful in collecting evidence to minize the risk of SBF
| getting away.
|
| I should point out that while this is unfortunate, this is
| all a relatively inevitable consequence of having a justice
| system. Since humans are deciding cases, there will always be
| a small chance that they screw it up (in one direction or
| another). You can't have arbitrary do-overs for people who
| feel their case was decided poorly, because everyone thinks
| that (or will say they do).
| csours wrote:
| Thanks for your comment. I think a lot of people are not
| understanding it.
|
| To a large extent (not completely) law enforcement and the
| greater justice system exist to mitigate contention in
| society. If the target of a law enforcement action is rich or
| famous, and the crime is not active or physically damaging,
| then it will be contentious to arrest the rich/famous
| criminal. If the criminal is not rich or famous, or if the
| crime is physical (murder, assault, etc) then the arrest will
| be less contentious, and the police will proceed.
|
| Up until now, it has not been at all contentious for the
| police to arrest/abuse lower status persons.
|
| In the case of a contentious arrest of a high status person,
| arrest will be delayed until the exact charges are known and
| believed to be provable.
|
| ---
|
| I am describing the system as I see it now, not the system
| that I think should exist.
|
| The faults described here are not faults of individual
| members of any justice system, they are faults of society and
| we ascribe value.
|
| Before replying to this comment, please think about policing
| in feudal societies and consider the lessons of Foucault in
| "Discipline and Punish".
| nerpderp82 wrote:
| It is easy to see how that entire chain of events could have
| really utterly fsckd over your life. I am sorry you had to go
| through that, but at least it didn't go totally sideways.
|
| It easily could have cost you your job, then your apt, etc.
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| The severity of your experience makes zero sense... until you
| mention being a punk rocker.
|
| Fact is: non-punk rockers merely get the right to become
| masters-of-the-universe revoked.
|
| /s
| public_defender wrote:
| I'm sorry this happened to you.
| UweSchmidt wrote:
| That a school vice principal would call the cops on a student
| boggles the mind (outside of serious crimes or imminent
| danger). The true educator will patiently observe the ups and
| downs of a student through the years and will work to
| _teach_. Try and engage the student more, talk about drugs
| and choice in a smart way, recommend some jiu-jitsu classes
| or, as a last resort, talk to the parents.
|
| Faith in humanity? Sometimes shaky.
| dullcrisp wrote:
| That's true but what you're describing is an example of
| injustice. It would probably be better if everyone were
| treated like SBF than if everyone were treated like you were.
| luckylion wrote:
| Do you believe it's possible that everyone is treated like
| royalty? And if not, wouldn't it be better if royalty was
| treated like poor people instead of having a multi-tiered
| justice system where the fairness of the system depends on
| your class?
| dullcrisp wrote:
| If by being treated like royalty you mean being treated
| with empathy, then yes I believe that that is possible.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| I think part of it's because when a poor person looks vaguely
| associated with a crime, it's straight to jail. When it's a
| rich person it's all "well IDK we just can't be _sure_ , can
| we?"
| savryn wrote:
| ah so that's why my city is so crime free, I and all the
| women I know are never hypervigilant taking public transport,
| I'm never afraid for my elderly relatives to be bashed in the
| head or pushed onto the tracks by 9 time offenders out on
| bail, and everyone working exhausting retail hours from cvs
| to applestore doesn't know why all these totally-prejudiced
| shoplifting deepfakes go viral
|
| I'd be fine with the new surveillance state if it actually
| delivered some safety-dividends, but i guess lawlessness
| keeps the working class in line
| rpgmaker wrote:
| >but does anyone at this point really understand it deeply
| enough to file an arrest warrant?
|
| That hasn't stopped prosecutors before. This is happening
| because there is no appetite to go after him, people can take a
| look at the public record so far and wonder why this might be
| the case.
| cryptonector wrote:
| In principle charges are not to be brought unless the
| prosecutor believes they have enough evidence to win a
| conviction in court.
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| This is a simple explanation:
| https://twitter.com/compound248/status/1598446656634191872
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Also, it's not like he's about to hop in a private jet and
| evade the jurisdiction. He's constrained in an extradition
| friendly country. And to the extent it's not extradition
| friendly (mostly if they want to press charges first), it
| doesn't help to file an arrest warrant.
|
| Speed isn't required here.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Hasn't SBF given long detailed interviews about the activity of
| FTX & his roles there?
| [deleted]
| kasey_junk wrote:
| Yes but it's fairly complex and he keeps presenting it as a
| mistake and a lack of controls.
|
| He hasn't admitted to it as fraud, which is (I've heard) hard
| to prove.
| pierrebai wrote:
| Spending your customer deposit that are legally off-limits,
| and that he said were off-limit, on things like houses,
| properties, etc for your own self and family is not a
| straight-up admission of wrong doing?
|
| Since when breaking and entering a looting a house can be
| defended with "well, I thought all was fine"?
|
| He admitted numerous times doing things that are straight
| up illegal.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| > customer deposit that are legally off-limits
|
| Where did you get this impression? Even that part is
| potentially up for debate. FTX isn't a bank or anything
| like that and they say that FTX USA is actually still
| solvent and will payout. I have my doubts about the last
| one but if he actually pays all US customers back he
| might get away with this.
| wmf wrote:
| _Spending your customer deposit that are legally off-
| limits, and that he said were off-limit, on things like
| houses, properties, etc for your own self and family_
|
| This isn't proven. He could have bought those houses with
| VC money not customer deposits.
| tedunangst wrote:
| Everyone says they know all the facts, but I haven't seen
| anyone post a draft of what they imagine the indictment will
| look like to gist or pastebin.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Too busy speaking with Zelensky, Zuckerberg, Yellen, and friends.
|
| https://www.nytco.com/press/the-new-york-times-to-host-annua...
| temptemptemp111 wrote:
| fredgrott wrote:
| That is the wrong question given the fact that VCs were involved
| in passing around a business template that told how to issue
| tokens to get around SEC governance!
|
| It's not just SBF that will be under possible arrest and jail
| time, expect some VCs to also be prosecuted.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Money, and privilege.
| Animats wrote:
| US prosecutors don't want to get an indictment until they have
| enough info for a conviction. If they indict prematurely, the
| perp may get an acquittal. They only get one shot. That's what
| "double jeopardy" is about.
|
| What ought to be the easy win here for prosecutors is theft, in
| the form of diversion of client funds. That's most likely to
| apply to FTX.us. Now, if FTX was registered as a "national
| securities exchange", or a broker/dealer, under US law, that
| would definitely apply. Without that, the jurisdiction issues are
| worse.
|
| [1] https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdtn/pr/former-mid-state-
| securi...
| wmf wrote:
| They do superseding indictments all the time.
| black_13 wrote:
| spicymaki wrote:
| If they wanted him, they would have gotten him already. This is
| regular every-day corruption.
| graeme wrote:
| The biggest answer people miss is that:
|
| 1. Sam Bankman Fried is in the Bahamas 2. Sam Bankman Fried was
| Tether's biggest customer and banked with Deltec, Tether's bank
| 3. The attorney general of the Bahamas, the man with the power to
| arrest Sam, is Deltec's former lawyer
|
| The US system is probably content to watch while Sam confesses,
| but they can't directly arrest him and Sam appears to have
| captured the local judicial apparatus.
| guelo wrote:
| Bahamas has an extradition treaty with the US
| bloak wrote:
| Yes, but what is in that treaty, and is there any reason he
| should be extradited to the USA rather than tried in the
| Bahamas, or extradited to some other country, for that
| matter?
|
| It's an honest question: I don't know the details of what he
| is accused of.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The US system is probably content to watch while Sam
| confesses, but they can't directly arrest him
|
| The US has directly apprehended people in foreign countries for
| criminal prosecution in the US, including countries with whom
| they have extradition treaties, and the target being corruptly
| linked to and protected by local law enforcement has been a
| factor in favor of such action when it has occurred.
| googlryas wrote:
| You can still get a US arrest warrant even if you aren't in the
| US.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| He won't make an arrest because the subject is a former
| customer of a bank for which he is a former lawyer? Am I
| misunderstanding?
| graeme wrote:
| A criminal bank, yes.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| A bank which happens to be the centerpiece of the entire
| iFinex (tether/USDT + Bitfinex) thing (which may or may not
| be legit).
|
| And SBF is not just a customer from that bank. He also bought
| another bank, in the US, which previously belonged to the
| owners of Deltec. And FTX's top lawyer happened to be a
| colleague of Bitfinex's top lawyer (they both worked for the
| same company which actively defrauded online poker players).
|
| So there are ties that do go beyond: _" customer of a bank"_.
|
| It looks like it's a little circle of people who know very
| well each other.
|
| To give an idea of the amounts involved: Tether emitted USDTs
| worth, so far, _four times_ the entire GDP of the Bahamas.
|
| Bahamas is so small (400 K people) that when the authorities
| stormed FTX's office and forced SBF to handle them the keys
| for various shitcoins, they froze an amount representing back
| then 5% of the Bahamas' GDP (now more like 1.5% because these
| shitcoins melted, but still).
|
| The amounts in play are tiny and insignificant for a country
| like the US: QEs are in the trillions, bank bailouts in 2008
| were done with $700 billions+, etc.
|
| But for a tiny country like the Bahamas, we're talking about
| a _lot_ of money.
|
| I'm not saying that he's protected or that the authorities
| knew about his wrongdoings but you cannot rule that out (at
| which point many coincidences are not coincidences anymore?).
| williamcotton wrote:
| https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pepe-silvia
| boomchinolo78 wrote:
| Some people have friends
| happytoexplain wrote:
| Can you be more explicit? It sounds like you're being
| sarcastic.
|
| Are you saying they are friends (in which case, what is the
| point of pointing to the much weaker relationship)? Or are
| you saying the weaker relationship is evidence of
| friendship (presumably combined with the fact that he chose
| to go to the Bahamas)? Or something else?
|
| Edit: Whoops, I just read more of the comments and am
| seeing there is a tribalism angle to this. I'm not sure I
| want to try parsing the answers to my questions :(
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| You forget he was also the 2nd largest donor to the Democratic
| Party last year, and allegedly gave plenty to Republicans as
| "dark money" (though he only said that after the Democratic
| donations came out, so it could be a lie to save face).
|
| If you won your election with SBF funds, it undermines the will
| to prosecute, or to view him as the conman he is instead of a
| stupid young guy.
|
| For that reason, don't be surprised when Democratic Party
| leaders send out apologetic messages like this:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33836009
| bink wrote:
| I keep seeing comments like this on HN and it's
| disappointing. His co-CEO donated $20 million to Republican
| causes as well. There is no conspiracy here. It isn't even
| proper to say that there's the normal favoritism shown to
| business that donate to both parties. There's no evidence of
| any favoritism at all yet and comments like these just play
| into the tribalism that's greatly damaged the US over the
| last few decades.
| majormajor wrote:
| Which specific prosecutors do you think won election with SBF
| funds that you think should be already after him?
| chadash wrote:
| This ignores the parent comment. Whether or not members of
| the democratic party want to throw him in jail is irrelevant
| since they are not able to so long as he is in a different
| country. If he can convince the bahamas not to prosecute,
| nothing else really matters.
| DennisP wrote:
| The US has an extradition treaty with the Bahamas.
| chadash wrote:
| Yeah, but they can't just go there and arrest him. Right
| now, the US and the bahamas seem to be in dispute over
| where to hold the bankruptcy. So there's some territorial
| beef. It's entirely in the hands of the Bahamas to arrest
| him and turn him over, if they decide to turn him over at
| all. In any case, it's common for extradition to take
| months or even years.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It adds a few more steps.
|
| It's a good rule of thumb that if you are hacking you
| should target victims in another country other than your
| own. I think the Netherlands (say) could get you
| extradited from the US, but it is a lot of work and the
| whole process of investigation leading up to to that
| extradition is going to be slowed down since the police
| won't be able to use the same powers they could do if you
| were in their jurisdiction. Most likely they'll go
| prosecute some easier case and only go after you if the
| results of your hack are particularly larger, visible and
| embarrassing.
| jasonhansel wrote:
| In particular, the US police won't be able to just show
| up at FTX's headquarters with a search warrant.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Even better, escape to England, appeal against the
| conditions of the US prison system:
|
| "In January 2021, a British judge ruled Australian-born
| Assange should not be extradited, saying his mental
| health meant he would be at risk of suicide if convicted
| and held in a maximum security prison.
|
| But that decision was overturned after an appeal by U.S.
| authorities who gave a package of assurances, including a
| pledge he could be transferred to Australia to serve any
| sentence."
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/julian-assange-appeals-
| europea...
|
| @LegitShady It delayed his extradition for years while
| court cases and appeals worked out - and, if it goes
| through, he'll escape to an Australian prison instead of
| an American one. Worked as well as it could compared to
| alternatives.
| LegitShady wrote:
| in other words, it doesn't work
| freejazz wrote:
| Congress doesn't control the justice department and
| cannot bring charges... Maxine really has nothing to do
| with it.
| graeme wrote:
| No, I'm not forgetting that. You're ignoring my comment.
|
| SBF was a donor to those politicians, but a _conspirator_
| with the attorney general. Whole other level of involvement.
|
| The US can put in an extradition request and it will be
| handled...by the same attorney general who is in on it.
|
| Re: your link, getting SBT to testify would be a win,
| especially if he was physically travels to the US to do so,
| where he could be arrested. The general legal strategy when
| under threat is to say nothing that can be used against you.
| martinflack wrote:
| If donations is a factor, it would be more logical for
| politicians to consider the likelihood of future donations
| rather than past ones. In fact, if the chance of future
| donations is close to zero, there is a certain appeal in
| making an example of SBF to "prove" that donations do not
| matter in this way.
|
| (I'm still mulling whether they do or not; just commenting on
| the game theory.)
| bombcar wrote:
| I think the argument would be that said second largest
| donor would have beans to spill if they get arrested.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| >there is a certain appeal in making an example
|
| No politician wants to make an example of any white collar
| crime for they are all criminals themselves and they fear
| someone making an example of them
| MrPatan wrote:
| You forget the example the politicians want to make to
| _other_ future donors.
|
| If you let him hang because he doesn't have more money to
| give you, nobody else is going to give you anything.
| projektfu wrote:
| On the other hand it's not good when they embarrass you,
| regardless of how much they might have put in. If you
| make it clear that being hung out to dry will be the
| punishment for embarrassment, maybe you'll get fewer of
| those donations.
| aschearer wrote:
| He was also the 3rd largest donor to the Republican Party, or
| so he claims: https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-bankman-
| fried-says-hes-t...
| umeshunni wrote:
| He claims many things, but as we have learned, it's best
| not to believe what he claims.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| Convenient that there are no records.....
| [deleted]
| aschearer wrote:
| Thanks, Citizens United.
| lalos wrote:
| Being a donor doesn't save you from being arrested, see
| Madoff https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/12/madoff-and-
| company-...
| smcl wrote:
| Wouldn't those open contributions not _encourage_ any
| implicated Dems to go hard on him, as a measure of self-
| preservation to prove to the electorate they weren 't being
| bought (whether or not that was the original intention)?
| MrPatan wrote:
| Depends on the message they want to send to future
| potential donors.
| smcl wrote:
| Yeah good thinking - man figuring out the politician meta
| is really kinda tough
| fallingknife wrote:
| Being a prospective future donor is what gets you special
| treatment, not being a past donor. SBF is not going to be
| making big donations to anyone anytime soon, so all his
| donations will get him nothing.
| Kye wrote:
| He got high on his own supply and put too much into the
| scheme. He can't exactly threaten to stop donating if he has
| no money to spare for it. Absent that, the PR value of being
| able to frame it as fighting corrupt business practices is
| enormous.
| root_axis wrote:
| > _If you won your election with SBF funds, it undermines the
| will to prosecute_
|
| This reasoning doesn't make sense to me, they already
| accepted and spent the money, if anything that's an incentive
| _to_ prosecute in order to cultivate a perception of distance
| from his wrongdoing.
| MuffinFlavored wrote:
| Why would he donate to both parties?
| hairofadog wrote:
| Many (but not all) corporations and wealthy people donate
| to both political parties because it gives them access and
| influence, generally with the idea of furthering their own
| specific goals as opposed to advancing a broad policy
| agenda.
| MuffinFlavored wrote:
| > 1. Sam Bankman Fried is in the Bahamas
|
| If he's an American citizen, why isn't he being extradited?
| Because of his connections?
| maxbond wrote:
| Is this really a more convincing explanation than, these things
| take time? FTX filed for bankruptcy less than a month ago. It's
| a complex white collar case across multiple jurisdictions.
| Whether or not this Bahamian AG was corrupt - why would we
| expect an arrest by this point?
|
| If the case doesn't develop over the next, say, 11 months, I'll
| be as suspicious as anyone else. But at this point it feels
| like jumping at shadows.
| williamcotton wrote:
| The most boring explanation is the most likely explanation.
|
| The most interesting explanation is the most likely to be
| heard explanation.
| g42gregory wrote:
| He is a an exceedingly large donor to the establishment,
| especially to the party currently in charge (matters not which
| one). With his connections, he is in the different tier. No
| judgement here on whether it's good or bad.
| denlekke wrote:
| despite having donated to both parties extensively, i think
| it's largely a perceptional issue. while the FTX collapse IS
| mainstream news, the mainstream largely isn't impacted and has
| already written off crypto as a massive scam. so in some
| regards, i think joe regular-guy enjoys the spectacle of crypto
| people losing their money because it validates their skepticism
| of the entire ecosystem.
|
| for either party to feel really motivated to arrest or
| prosecute, they'd want joe regular-guy to be clamoring for that
| action and i don't think that's the case.
| mcrad wrote:
| Right, and SBX's handlers are pushing the lie that the scam
| doesn't effect the mainstream citizen / regular joe.
| hoffs wrote:
| Lmaoooo
| angrycontrarian wrote:
| > despite having donated to both parties extensively
|
| > both
|
| He was the second biggest donor to the DNC after George
| Soros. I'm not aware of any RNC contributions.
| wishfish wrote:
| He admitted donating to Republican dark money groups. He
| claims he donated roughly the same amount to conservative
| causes as he did with Democratic orgs. Plus, another exec
| in his organization, Ryan Salame, donated $24 million to
| Republican candidates.
|
| Between Sam's dark money donations and Ryan's $24 million,
| it's possible Republicans received more FTX money than
| Democrats. I don't know if that's true, but it's possible.
|
| https://fortune.com/crypto/2022/11/29/sam-bankman-fried-
| poli...
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/01/crypto-
| po...
| angrycontrarian wrote:
| >claims
|
| >it's possible
|
| >I don't know if that's true, but it's possible.
|
| Sounds an awful lot like a conspiracy theory, my dude.
| wishfish wrote:
| If you want to call Sam a liar, be my guest. But it's his
| claim. Plus the $24 million from Ryan is documented.
|
| If Sam isn't lying, then that's 40 million + 24 million =
| 64 million to Republicans. Which is more than the roughly
| 40 million to Democrats.
|
| All of this is from public information and Sam's claims.
| Where's the conspiracy theory, my dude?
| MrPatan wrote:
| > If you want to call Sam a liar
|
| Yes
| chrisco255 wrote:
| Sam is a liar, that much is a widely documented fact.
| That much is known. Your numbers are incomplete and
| misleading.
|
| We somehow know both SBF and Ryan Salame's personal
| donations, and he claims dark money went to Republicans
| but how much dark money went to Democrats? 0? What about
| the other staffers at FTX? SBF has appeared in public
| with Maxine Waters and Bill Clinton. His own mother is a
| major Silicon Valley booster for the Democrats [1]. You
| telling me no money made it to his own mother's Democrat
| PAC?
|
| Sam's public claims are not reliable. He is a
| pathological liar. He manipulated his own accounting
| books to make his company appear solvent for fundraising
| purposes. You cannot trust the damage control PR of a
| pathological liar.
|
| [1] https://www.influencewatch.org/political-party/mind-
| the-gap/
| wishfish wrote:
| These are the numbers we know. I can't assess the numbers
| we don't know. That's why I was careful to use the words
| "possible" and "not sure if this is true". I wasn't
| trying to be misleading. I fully understood there might
| be donations we don't know about. But I guess that was
| for naught since you're calling me a liar anyways.
|
| I would tend to believe him on the Republican dark money.
| Sam needs all the help he can get right now. It makes
| sense to make these donations public knowledge. Plus, in
| the legalized bribery known as campaign donations, it
| makes sense to donate to both sides. Most companies which
| do political donations make donations to both. A few very
| ideological execs will only donate to this side or that,
| but Sam doesn't strike me as one of those.
|
| Maybe I'm wrong. But I doubt it. The winning move is to
| donate to both sides. If the Republicans received zero
| from Sam, they'd have every reason to reveal this to the
| world. To hurt Democrats and punish the guy who gave them
| nothing. But the Republicans aren't doing this. Silence
| to me is evidence that Sam gave at least part of what he
| claimed.
|
| As for the numbers we don't know, I'm not making any
| claims. Maybe a billion went to Democratic PACs. Maybe
| nothing did. Who knows? It's worthless making assessments
| on this until further evidence comes out.
| angrycontrarian wrote:
| We're talking about a major political donor who just
| defrauded people for billions of dollars, whose parents
| are extremely well connected to the DNC and have actually
| written a substantial amount of legislation put forward
| by Democratic lawmakers, and who was sleeping with the
| niece of the current head of the SEC who was appointed by
| Biden. He has every single motivation to lie about this.
| Animatronio wrote:
| Now that's a conspiracy theory worthy of a movie with,
| say, Aaron Taylor Johnson as SBF and Margot Robbie as his
| gf (I think she should be pretty in the movie!)
| freejazz wrote:
| Oh my god dude, his parents are tax professors, you are
| being so incredibly disingenuous with your posts and then
| to hem and haw about conspiracy theories in response.
| angrycontrarian wrote:
| His mom _literally_ runs a major fundraising arm of the
| DNC.
| maxbond wrote:
| And your view that his donations are relevant to his
| prosecution - that's just "facts and logic", I suppose?
|
| Tell me, if he and Democrats hatched a plan to avoid
| prosecution. What would one call that? What crime would
| this be?
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >I'm not aware of any RNC contributions.
|
| Now you are.
|
| https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/ftx-founder-sam-
| bankman...
|
| https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/04/11/ftx-co-ceo-
| donate...
| angrycontrarian wrote:
| So 0.6% of his overall contributions? Not even a full
| percent?
| mikeyouse wrote:
| His co-president gave over $20M to republicans and some
| republican congressmen were among his staunchest
| defenders and were actively trying to prevent the SEC
| from investigating. It would behoove people to read _a
| little bit_ about the case before they start
| pontificating on their pet conspiracy theories.
|
| I saw elsewhere you're now claiming that SBF was sleeping
| with Gensler's niece which is a straight lie as far as I
| can tell? I think it's just a mistaken reference to
| Caroline Ellison's dad working in a different department
| at MIT when Gensler was there?
|
| https://www.opensecrets.org/outside-
| spending/donor_detail/20...
|
| https://twitter.com/RepTomEmmer/status/150411790208094208
| 4?
|
| https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-sec-chair-ftx-ceo-
| daug...
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| .
| thepasswordis wrote:
| No, he's in the Bahamas and yes is is a donor to the Bahamian
| government.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| it turns out he was smart enough to give to both parties,
| knowing how power can change hands (not saying that giving to
| either party was a good thing)
| lavventura wrote:
| What will happen when the party currently in charge change?
| Will he still be untouchable?
| mikeyouse wrote:
| It's a dumb conspiracy in the first place -- he _was_ a large
| donor to some congressional candidates, many of whom lost
| (over $10M of his 2022 funds went to a losing candidate in an
| Oregon primary). In any case, it 's obvious he has zero money
| and zero future prospects to be politically useful so there's
| no reason that anyone in charge would go out of their way to
| "protect" him (contrary to someone like Corzine, Menendez or
| Rick Scott).
|
| These theories are just weird HN conspiracies to add mystique
| to the very normal slow Federal justice process.
| MrPatan wrote:
| If you were a politician interested in getting more of that
| sweet fraudster money, tell me, what would you do to send a
| signal that you're open for business to the next batch of
| fraudsters, hang the guy that paid you, or help him out?
|
| Sure, this may just be bullshit, we dont know, etc etc, but
| "he has no more money" is not a very good argument
| frgtpsswrdlame wrote:
| It's been coming out that he donated lots to them too so I
| guess we'll see. My impression overall though is that he will
| end up in jail, it's just going to take a while for everyone
| who received his money to come to terms with the scale of his
| fraud.
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| Well, he claims to have given about as much to both parties
| (just in different ways).
|
| https://fortune.com/crypto/2022/11/29/sam-bankman-fried-
| poli...
|
| Cynically, this makes sense to me as what he was buying was
| really lack of government oversight.
| acdha wrote:
| > Cynically, this makes sense to me as what he was buying
| was really lack of government oversight.
|
| Yeah, I think a lot of people forget that for something
| like this he didn't need to actually get the government to
| do anything: simply delaying action gave him the chance to
| do hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud.
| DennisP wrote:
| He also is _part_ of the establishment, as a former Jane Street
| trader.
| oxff wrote:
| Obviously corruption.
| soumyadeb wrote:
| This tweet explains it all
|
| https://twitter.com/RepMaxineWaters/status/15986938112528752...
|
| (For folks who don't know, Maxine is a congresswoman sitting on
| U.S. House Committee on Financial Services)
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| well no, actually the linked article we're discussing explains
| it all.
| warinukraine wrote:
| You know.... it might be time for a presidential candidate to
| run on fighting corruption.
| guelo wrote:
| The US is corrupt but not that corrupt. There is separation of
| powers between congress and the DOJ. And even within the
| executive there are firewalls between the politicians and the
| prosecutors.
| deaddodo wrote:
| > The US is corrupt but not that corrupt.
|
| By that metric, every nation is corrupt and the term becomes
| meaningless.
|
| It would be like hyperbolically calling every person guilty
| of physically injuring someone else a "murderer".
| guelo wrote:
| Every nation does have corruption. Corruption is not a
| binary.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| 1 year ago: "We need to put reporting requirements on account
| flow for all bank accounts worth more than $600 to avoid
| billionaire corruption."
|
| Now: "SBF, would you join us for tea and coffee at a cordial
| executive meeting?"
| maxbond wrote:
| My reading is this is a very cordial invitation to hang
| himself under oath. If you think SBF is guilty, than you have
| to believe he'd be insane to "participate in a hearing." (If
| you think he's innocent, it's still a crazy thing to do. I'd
| encourage anyone who hasn't seen Don't Talk to the Police to
| watch it. https://youtu.be/d-7o9xYp7eE )
| soumyadeb wrote:
| Not unless you know you will be asked about weather in the
| Bahamas.
| maxbond wrote:
| Would you bet your liberty on it? For what upside?
|
| Say Waters throws only softballs. Why wouldn't
| Republicans on the committee seize the opportunity to
| make her look foolish and compromised by throwing
| hardballs?
| mindslight wrote:
| Most prosecutions don't involve playing coy with the
| defendant in hopes they might be forthcoming with evidence
| before things get all adversarial. There's no reason for
| kid gloves, especially for this case with its clear cut set
| up of fraud - the hard evidence is going to consist of
| transaction logs and other digital files that need to be
| preserved.
|
| About the most generous interpretation you can give the
| above tweet is the representative merely trying to get her
| name in the spotlight on a current hip topic. But that
| still begs the question of why she would want her name
| anywhere near stories about a con man - it still seems as
| if only some types of criminals need to be distanced from.
| maxbond wrote:
| Waters is not a prosecutor. She's on the financial
| services committee; there's been a big disruption in the
| finance world. It's pretty normal for the committee to
| investigate it.
| mindslight wrote:
| Yes, I know that. The "big disruption" is that someone
| committed simple fraud - SBF seemingly took money while
| promising to act as its custodian, while actually
| gambling with it behind the scenes. What's the meta issue
| to be investigated and pondered here? Fraud is one of the
| oldest crimes.
| emmp wrote:
| I mean Congress doesn't arrest people
| rocket_surgeron wrote:
| Technically speaking they can, but haven't since the 1800s.
|
| https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/19/204/
|
| Not applicable in this case, though.
| deaddodo wrote:
| In what way? They literally write and vote on the (Federal)
| legislation that puts people in jail via the War on Drugs,
| the War on Terrorism, various specific crimes, etc.
|
| Or do you mean literally? Because they most definitely have
| officers in both chambers of Congress and they're fully
| empowered LEOs.
| tedunangst wrote:
| Crazy that NY mag would write a whole article when they could
| have just clicked retweet.
| jasonhansel wrote:
| The NY Mag article argues _against_ that interpretation.
| tptacek wrote:
| He agrees. He's implying, reasonably, that the comment
| above is fatuous.
| jasonhansel wrote:
| Ah, sorry, I think I didn't catch the sarcasm.
| [deleted]
| wubbert wrote:
| sakopov wrote:
| There are high-ranking government officials openly insider
| trading without any investigations. We have a woman who's been
| sentenced for sexual trafficking of minors to virtually "nobody
| in particular". We now have multiple massive crypto scams go
| completely over everyone's head because it's "internet nerd
| money".
|
| This complete inaction on behalf of authorities is really
| starting to feel like any actual wrongdoing assumed by a normal
| person is just a whacky conspiracy theory that gets swept under
| the rug because nobody is getting punished for anything when the
| trail seemingly leads to "the establishment" or whatever you
| might call it. I mean, I feel a little kooky just typing all of
| this out.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| It's always been this way. You just never knew it because it
| wasn't covered by the very narrow view of the world that the
| legacy news media presented.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| I read the article and was puzzled by this:
|
| >> We have not seen anything like a real admission of criminal
| conduct from SBF yet
|
| He seems to have made many admissions, just in an "aw shucks i
| mixed up the money and now its all disappeared" and this seems to
| fall under "ignorance of the law isnt a defense of criminal
| behavior"
| 35amxn35 wrote:
| scohesc wrote:
| He hasn't been arrested yet because of one of the reasons below.:
|
| - It's easier for the government to hunt down $600+ transactions
| instead of trying to navigate their own obtuse, complicated tax
| laws - wonder if that's intentional, but that's a tangent that
| doesn't need to be explored
|
| - SBF donated millions of dollars to DNC causes and (SBF-
| admitted, which ANYBODY should take with a grain of salt since
| the guy's a sneaky little liar) to RNC causes. Why would
| politicians rush or push to prosecute someone who gave or could
| give them more money in the future?
|
| - SBF has family that's tied to major political movements (I
| believe his mom runs/works for/with a larger financing arm of the
| DNC).
|
| - It simply takes a long time for the evidence to be gathered,
| put on display, and have him sentenced/found guilty.
|
| It is _VERY_ suspicious that most media outlets are being nice
| and trying to whitewash this into obscurity. The dude "LOST" 1-2
| billion dollars.
|
| SBF should be under witness protection, at the very least - if
| not jailed until trial.
|
| The facetious, compulsively lying tech bro who only says "I'm
| sorry" after literally stealing investors' money should quite
| literally be barred from seeing the light of day ever again.
|
| Not sure if SBF decided to run this racket for a self-corrupted
| version of "citizen justice" against a broken and unfair economic
| system, but he sure harmed a lot of innocent people in the
| crossfire if that was the intent.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if he's able to disappear from the eyes
| of the public due to the always-corporately-manipulated media
| conglomerates.
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