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The Courts The Almighty Buck United States

'Mountain' of FTX Evidence Includes Emails, Chat Logs, Slack Messages and Google Accounts (yahoo.com) 24

An anonymous reader shared this report from the New York Times: Snippets of computer code. More than six million pages of emails, Slack messages and other digital records. And a small black notebook, filled with handwritten observations. For months, federal prosecutors building the criminal case against the fallen cryptocurrency executive Sam Bankman-Fried have assembled a vast and unusually varied array of evidence. The documents include crypto transaction logs and encrypted group chats from Mr. Bankman-Fried's collapsed exchange, FTX, as well as strikingly personal reflections recorded by a key witness in the case. The mountain of evidence ranks among the largest ever collected in a white-collar securities fraud case prosecuted by the federal authorities in Manhattan, according to data provided by a person with knowledge of the matter...

The diversity and growing volume of materials in the FTX case underscore the legal challenges facing Mr. Bankman-Fried, 31, who is charged with 13 criminal counts, including accusations that he misappropriated billions of dollars in customer money, defrauded investors and violated campaign finance laws. He has pleaded not guilty. With the trial set for October, prosecutors have gathered evidence ranging from phones and laptops to the contents of Mr. Bankman-Fried's Google accounts, which amounted to 2.5 million pages alone. At a hearing in March, Nicolas Roos, a federal prosecutor investigating FTX, said the government had obtained a laptop crammed with so much information that the F.B.I.'s technicians were struggling to decipher all of it. "It is a massive amount to sift through, and sometimes you can find incredibly useful information," said Moira Penza, a former federal prosecutor who's now in private practice. "It is a real challenge...."

Many of FTX's corporate records, including emails, Slack messages and transaction logs, were held by Sullivan & Cromwell, the law firm that took control of the exchange after it declared bankruptcy... In a January court filing, Sullivan & Cromwell displayed an excerpt from FTX's underlying code base, showing a feature that allowed Alameda to borrow virtually unlimited amounts of money from the exchange.

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'Mountain' of FTX Evidence Includes Emails, Chat Logs, Slack Messages and Google Accounts

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  • SBF is (Score:5, Funny)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Saturday May 27, 2023 @12:50PM (#63555651)
    FKD
  • by bubblyceiling ( 7940768 ) on Saturday May 27, 2023 @12:51PM (#63555653)
    Business as usual for the finance industry. Swindle the poors & the middle class.
    • by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Saturday May 27, 2023 @01:21PM (#63555717)
      Unlikely. The slap-on-the-wrist for financial crimes is what happens when the case is flimsy or for garden variety stuff. OTOH Enron sent 21 people to prison and Arthur Anderson got straight-up destroyed. The FTX thing looks to be several times larger. And it seems like SBF barely bothered to cover his tracks.
      • by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Saturday May 27, 2023 @01:39PM (#63555751) Journal

        Worse still, SBF committed the ultimate crime: he took money from wealthy people.

        • The FBI is having trouble investigating because SBF gave to Democrats and that's who they protect.

          • The investigation seems to be moving at light speed. Probably because the wreckage he’s caused is practically visible from space. Imdont think there’s been a financial crime this big since Madoff. FTX can’t seem to account for close to 10 billion. Usually, I’m pretty cynical about politics and $$$$ but he doesnt seem to have been helped much by his checks to democrats.

            You wanna talk about crap politics, dodgy people and dark money, let’s talk about George Santos. The republ
          • The FBI is having trouble investigating because SBF gave to Democrats and that's who they protect.

            The DumboCraps will protect you IF you do not embarrass them in public.

            SBF embarrassed the DumboCraps in public will will pay for that with jail time...since the Jeffrey Epstein treatment would be a tad obvious.

        • No no no. If he took money from rich people, he would have been in jail already. Just look Holmes and her business partner. Even after all that, being sent to a place that is called a "camp", like in the case of Holmes is barely a slap on the wrist.
          • he would have been in jail already. Just look Holmes and her business partner.

            Not sure what your point is here. At the time of writing, Holmes is not in prison, while her former partner is.

            These things take time.

  • by Midnight_Falcon ( 2432802 ) on Saturday May 27, 2023 @12:53PM (#63555663)
    I personally can't wait for a new company to be founded by SBF, Elizabeth Holmes, Charlie Javice, with advisors Anna Sorokin Delvey and Martin Shkreli. Too bad they won't be in the same prison at the same time, because they'd be like the Olympic Basketball dream team of 1992..if grifting was a sport.
    • Too bad they won't be in the same prison at the same time, because they'd be like the Olympic Basketball dream team of 1992..if grifting was a sport.

      That is too bad, they could make it a reality TV show so we'd have something to watch during the writer's strike. How long before someone strangles Holmes for her fake voice?

    • Grifting is apparently a high paying job. Even if you do get caught 7 to 9 figures a year is worth the jail time for many people. 3 hots and cot is an upgrade to a majority of the world's population.
  • by manu0601 ( 2221348 ) on Saturday May 27, 2023 @05:44PM (#63556059)
    The deal is basically: plead guilty, or government will throw so many documents that you will need a decade to prepare for your trial, if you can afford it.
    • Not sure if your serious or trolling but that is a unique legal argument.

      "Your honor, my client is accused of stealing the Hope Diamond but can't have a fair trial because it's impossible for us to sort through the 1 million selfies our client took with the Hope Diamond that the prosecution submitted during discovery."
      • "Your honor, my client is accused of stealing the Hope Diamond but can't have a fair trial because it's impossible for us to sort through the 1 million selfies our client took with the Hope Diamond that the prosecution submitted during discovery."

        The prosecutor does not need 1 million of selfies to build its case, a dozen is enough. Filing thousands of documents just makes the defense costs prohibitive. It also adds unbearable delays if the suspect is waiting for its trial in jail.

  • SIX MILLION PAGES?

    It used to be that idiots compared things to Encyclopedia Brittanica. Nobody reads that or subsciribes to its delivery, so that means nothing. How about how many bytes. No? How about hard drives full of FTX stuff. No? How about a real measurement? No. a page. Got it. Six millions of thes pages.

    What's a page of email? Is it 80 characters wide 24 lines long monochrome green on black text?
    Is it whatever attachments I put on it like JPG, MP3, MOV?
    Is it what previous messages are and

    • Half of those are probably emails replying "Ok" or some other one word replies.

      Will not be surprised if every single email in a long email trail is printed multiple times as well especially if a bunch of people responded.

      Oh, they didnt specify page size, so Letter, A4, A1, A8 or something else?

      LOL

      • by hjf ( 703092 )

        don't forget the multiple disclaimers in legalese "this email was meant for the receiver, if you're not the receiver delete this immediately" and the marketing "we're eco friendly, think about printing emails", and the multiline signatures (with logos), and, and and,,,...

  • We're all wondering what app was for those group calls and how it was decrypted. I'll be wanting to NOT use it in the future.
  • by edibobb ( 113989 ) on Saturday May 27, 2023 @09:50PM (#63556411) Homepage
    The New York Times lost credibility with me when they published the puff pieces on Bankman-Fried late last year. I won't waste my time trying to determine the accuracy of this article.
    • by HiThere ( 15173 )

      I don't think you need to read the NY Times to realize that he's guilty. Of exactly what may be arguable, but I'd say fraud at least, and probably several other things. (List them and I may have an opinion.)

      OTOH, it will be hard to get a jury that hasn't already seem presentations of the evidence (as opposed to seeing the evidence) and formed an opinion not based on the evidence presented in court.

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