Prosecutors Find Out SBF Held $50 Million in Tiny Rural Bank

• Approximately $50 million was seized from Bankman-Fried’s Farmington State Bank account.
• The bank was the US’s 26th-smallest out of around 4,800, before Bankman-Fried had invested in it.
• Alameda Research, Bankman’s firm, took a stake in the bank and rebranded it “Moonstone”.

According to a court filing published on Friday, public prosecutors seized $49,999,500 from Sam Bankman-Fried, the defamed CEO of FTX, on January 4, 2023, in an effort to forfeit nearly $700 million in assets.

The amount was taken from an account created in the parent company of Farmington State Bank, Washington. FTX had invested $11.5 million in March last year, through a subsidiary, doing business under the name Alameda Research, in this state bank account which had raised a lot of questions at the time.

Before the time of Bankman-Fried’s investment, the bank was little known and had been the 26th-smallest bank out of around 4,800 banks in the US, with only three employees. As per a New York Times report from November, the bank specialized in agricultural loans to farmers and didn’t offer online banking or credit cards initially.

After Bankman-Fried took a stake in the bank and rebranded it as “Moonstone” the bank had grown to a net worth twice to what it originally was. Listed as “Moonstone Online” until recently, the bank did not claim any direct mention of cryptocurrencies. It said it had 32 employees and a $115 million valuation” consistent with other similar technology banks and trust-banks startups.”

Federal prosecutors allege that he used FTX customers’ money to build Alameda. The court report also shows that they have seized just over $100 million in an account with Silvergate Capital and $21 million with the brokerage firm ED&F Man Capital Markets.

Bankman-Fried also had 55 million shares of Robinhood assets seized, worth $526 million at Friday’s closing bell, and is being investigated for crypto and cash held in three Binance accounts.

The prosecutors are working to track down assets held by Bankman-Fried, who pleaded not guilty to eight charges of fraud earlier this month and is scheduled to face trial in October.

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