The news agency Reuters first reported that Bankman-Fried had been sentenced to 20 years behind bars, but corrected this shortly afterwards to 25 years.
The 32-year-old was found guilty last November of having stolen 8 billion dollars from customers and investors in FTX.
Bankman-Fried was prosecuted after the crypto exchange FTX collapsed in November 2022. In November last year, he was found guilty of a total of seven cases of fraud.
According to CNBC, the case has been referred to as “one of the largest financial frauds in American history” and the prosecution is said to have requested a sentence of 40 to 50 years in prison. The defense, for its part, requested a sentence of between five years and three months and six and a half years in prison.
The authorities believe the money was used to carry out risky investments, buy luxury housing, participate in a star-studded PR campaign and make large donations to political and charitable purposes via the hedge fund Alameda Research. He established the fund in 2017, two years before he launched the crypto exchange FTX.
– He knew it was wrong. He knew it was criminal. He regrets making a very bad bet on the chance of being caught. But he’s not going to admit anything, and he has the right to, said judge Lewis Kaplan before he read out the sentence.
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Tags: Crypto Cryptocurrency Reuters Crypto entrepreneur sentenced years prison
