> Bernie Madoff is a notable exception: he was arrested 3 days after his Ponzi was revealed. But it's not comparable at all to SBF's situation: Madoff was arrested after he confessed privately to his own family; his sons immediately went to the police.
Not only did he confess, saying it's "basically a giant Ponzi scheme," he also said that he planned to distribute the remaining $200-$300M in funds to family, friends, and employees in the next week.
And -- as the article points out -- Madoff was in the United States when he confessed. I rather doubt SBF will ever voluntarily set foot on US soil again.
Which may also be why we aren't seeing a warrant. Maybe SBF is playing for sympathy. But maybe he's just delusional. If the latter is the case, there is no need to tip him off with a performative warrant.
Sympathy or presidential pardon. It is astonishing the sort of kid gloves he has been treated with so far in the liberal media. I am no conspiracy theorist but this is suspicious.
> Fleeing to Dubai might mess with his "it was just an honest mistake" PR tour.
Not in any way that would matter. If it was an honest mistake, fleeing to Dubai (or anywhere) is still the right thing to do. Which means doing so doesn't undermine the idea that it was an honest mistake.
Unless the PR tour is some weird plan to buy time while he gets his ducks in a row to arrange his escape and amass his assets. Could also be playing himself off as dumb/broke naive guy until local police get lazy and then trivially board some random yacht.
Isn't there a statute of limitations for these types of crimes?
(Not sure for the US here, but...)
If all the data is spread to the winds, if everyone hits ground, can they even file charges? I suppose so, but if there is no evidence pointing to wrongdoing...
To be honest, I'm not even sure what he supposedly did wrong. He took investments, in an unregulated sector, and backed those investments and lost?
If he were a bank, that's 100% legit. No bank I know of, has 100% of investor funds backed by anything. Even in Canada, land of give-a-fuck-sorta, there used to be a requirement for banks to have hard currency (gold, cash) in a vault somewhere, 5% worth of account holder's value, which was inspected annually by the government. Yet the last time I read the bank act, it was removed as a requirement.
If banks don't need any sort of banking for account holders in CAD, why would an unregulated exchange need that?
(Again, I can imagine there are all sorts of things I'm missing... but?!)
When does it become criminal to skip the step of establishing an accounting system....prior employees say they didn't even know their cash, liability, or trading positions.
FTX customer deposits went into Alameda bank account. Could be that they stayed there and somebody just kept a spreadsheet of deposits?
My point is that the astounding lack of records and systems may make it very difficult to prosecute him. For example, trades and payments were executed just on verbal orders so it will be hard to pin specifics on SBF.
Probably testimony of insiders will be the most compelling evidence against him.
Oh I suspect he had lots of records for himself (just as one example each real estate transaction had records) and the ‘stunning lack of records’ is yet another lie (along with his lies about not understanding anything), in an attempt to cover up fraud with perceived incompetence. Suddenly, it seems nobody knew anything, how convenient!
He stole money and enriched himself and his family at the expense of others. He and everyone else involved including his parents, higher up employees and investors should feel deep shame.
The FTX network of companies (see the consolidated bankruptcy filings) includes more than 100 companies, some of which are American, all of which were ultimately controlled by SBF, most of which had what records they had commingled, and most of which seem to have been tools in the same set of international frauds.
He is only fleeing prosecution, if he is unavailable.
For example, he can easily be contacted for interviews, with an email or phone call, or even by visiting te Bahamas. Thus he is not fleeing, or hiding from contact, and I even presume he has a lawyer, whom the police can contact.
Not only did he confess, saying it's "basically a giant Ponzi scheme," he also said that he planned to distribute the remaining $200-$300M in funds to family, friends, and employees in the next week.