Enlarge (credit: NurPhoto / Contributor | NurPhoto)
FTX, the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange formerly helmed by fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried, has agreed to pay $12.7 billion to customers blindsided by Bankman-Fried's deceptions covering up FTX's flagrant misuse of customer funds.
In an order yesterday, US District Judge P. Kevin Castel said that FTX must pay $8.7 billion in restitution to victims of Bankman-Fried's fraudulent scheme, as well as disgorge another $4 billion in "gains received in connection with the violations" to further compensate customers who suffered significant losses.
According to Ian McGinley, the division of enforcement director for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), "this multi-billion-dollar recovery for victims" is "the largest such recovery in CFTC history." And the CFTC "achieved it with remarkable speed," McGinley boasted.
