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Dispatch from the Bahamas: FTX Mayhem

Dispatch from the Bahamas: FTX Mayhem
The road to Albany, the nerve center of FTX's global Ponzi scheme. Photo by Georgia Gee
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The story of Sam Bankman-Fried, former CEO of FTX, is unfolding every day like a TV drama. His arrest in the Bahamas on charges of wire fraud and money laundering mean he could face up to 115 years in prison. Now SBF, who was denied bail, is sitting in Fox

The story of Sam Bankman-Fried, former CEO of FTX, is unfolding every day like a TV drama. His arrest in the Bahamas on charges of wire fraud and money laundering mean he could face up to 115 years in prison.

Now SBF, who was denied bail, is sitting in Fox Hill, the Bahamas’ only prison. It’s a short drive but a long way from his $35 million penthouse on the island. The U.S. State Department described conditions at Fox Hill as “harsh, due to overcrowding, poor nutrition, inadequate sanitation and inadequate medical care.”

Back at the end of November, as his empire fell apart, I visited the island to investigate and went inside Albany, the luxury resort that SBF previously called home. In September 2021, he moved the headquarters of the company, and its trading firm Alameda, from Hong Kong to the Bahamas, a tax and regulatory haven.

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