FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
By RASHAD ROLLE and LYNAIRE MUNNINGS
Tribune Reporters
FOREIGN FTX workers reportedly rushed out of The Bahamas as legal woes ensnared the company last year, leaving behind dreams and pricey valuables.
The exodus of workers, many of whom once populated the Albany community, is highlighted in a new book about Sam Bankman-Fried, the troubled founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange.
“Some meaningful percentage of the company’s fleet of cars had been abandoned, keys still inside them, in the Bahamas airport lot,” wrote Michael Lewis, author of “Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon”, which was released yesterday.
Albany was reportedly once home to seventy employees and guests of FTX and Alameda Research, the cryptocurrency trading firm embroiled in legal conflict.
Mr Lewis’ book covers why Bankman-Fried moved FTX’s headquarters from Hong Kong to The Bahamas. The country’s nearness to the United States, its quickness to draft crypto regulations, attractive internet service, neutral tax system and the “truly wild number of empty luxury condominiums waiting to be turned into worker housing” lured him.
The Bahamas “was sufficiently hungry for any kind of business,” Mr Lewis writes, “that when Sam landed to check out the place he found himself meeting with the newly elected prime minister. ‘Sam, we’re broke,’ the prime minister is alleged to have “confessed.”
The book offers scant insight into the relationships Bankman-Fried made with locals or whether he affected government policy.
Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis reacted incredulously yesterday to one of the book’s headline-grabbing assertions: that Bankman-Fried offered to pay off the country’s $9bn debt.
“Who said I spoke to him?” Mr Davis asked reporters at Atlantis.
“Did he say that I spoke to him?
“Did he say that, or was that speculation, because who made the claim?
“Don’t you think that you ought to confirm whether such a discussion was held before the question is asked?
“Because for me, for my part, I had no discussion with FTX or Sam Bankman about paying off the national debt of The Bahamas.”
“I don’t need to be chasing ghosts. Identify the source of the claim, and if you could identify the source and it’s a direct source, I would respond, but I don’t need to be speculating about a claim that’s made, and I don’t know what’s made.”
Bankman-Fried’s fraud trial began in the United States yesterday with jury selection.
The 31-year-old could spend the rest of his life in prison if convicted.
He is accused of embezzling customer funds and misleading investors.
Comments
mandela 7 months, 2 weeks ago
I would like meet this writer, he is anothet Brian Ross, writing untruths and trying to make the Bahamas and its leaders look bad. There is no way a seasoned person as Mr. Davis is going to a thirty year old and blurring out we ( Bahamas ) broke and need your help, before he says we (Bahamas) broke, he would have said I broke and need help, so right there we know you're lying. There are so many haters of the Bahamas out there it's pitiful.
Porcupine 7 months, 2 weeks ago
It is pitiful, you are right. What do the statistics say about where our country is financially? Does it matter who did, or didn't say it? Is it true? Are we broke, or not? If for once, we focused on the issue at hand, instead of making sure the messenger is killed, perhaps we would get somewhere. It isn't bad press and haters which are taking this country down. It is our dismal performance. True, or not, no matter who is saying it?
ExposedU2C 7 months, 2 weeks ago
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TalRussell 7 months, 2 weeks ago
As the Jury selection begins in trial of disgraced crypto founder, --- Just hoping at least one of those be selected to serve on the Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) trial jury, --- Going to inquire of the judge, to more explore the mystery of the missing $10 Billion Treasure whereabouts of the Gold Bars Bullions, said to be buried/lodged for safekeeping somewhere about the colony's capital Out island's Nassau Town. --- Somebody(s), has possess more gold bars knowlwdge than they's willingness to admit to. Yes?
ExposedU2C 7 months, 1 week ago
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ExposedU2C 7 months, 1 week ago
Our corrupt and incompetent PM Davis, and others in the hierarchy of the PLP ruling class like Allyson Maynard-Gibson (a/k/a Wicked Witch of The West) and her protective and most conflicted brother Peter Maynard, all swooped in like vultures on SBF/FTX the moment SBF was persuaded to move his fraud ridden business from Hong Kong to The Bahamas. They took their cue from their U.S. counterparts like Maxine Waters. These people all feasted on the fraudulent activities of SBF/FTX like hungry flies finding the smelliest pile of shiit to feast on.
ExposedU2C 7 months, 1 week ago
There must be plenty of truth to this begging of SBF done by corrupt Davis. Just think about it for a moment. Since becoming PM, the very corrupt Davis, out of fear for his own political survival, has been begging the world for slavery reparations, for climate change reparations, etc., etc. Frankly put, Davis is a shameful beggar always looking for money to be put in his corrupt government's hands to feed the waste, fraud and corruption of the PLP hierarchy. Corrupt PM Davis has a well-established track record of being an indiscriminate beggar of the highest order.
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