FTX sues founder Sam Bankman-Fried to recoup funds

STORY: Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX is suing its indicted founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, and other former top executives to try and claw back over $1 billion in funds they allegedly misappropriated before the company went bankrupt.

This comes months after criminal charges were filed against Bankman-Fried and prosecutors alleged he stole billions in FTX customer funds to plug losses at his hedge fund Alameda Research.

FTX is now led by a caretaker CEO, John Ray, an attorney who helped manage Enron after the energy trader's 2001 bankruptcy.

The complaint filed in a Delaware bankruptcy court Thursday named three of Bankman-Fried’s associates, Caroline Ellison, Zixiao “Gary” Wang and Nishad Singh, who along with Bankman-Fried continually misappropriated funds to finance luxury condos, speculative investments and other "pet projects," while committing "one of the largest financial frauds in history."

Alleged fraud included $725 million of equity that FTX and West Realm Shires, an entity that Bankman-Fried controlled, awarded "without receiving any value in exchange."

The filing said Bankman-Fried and Wang also allegedly misappropriated $546 million to buy shares of Robinhood while Ellison used $28.8 million to pay herself bonuses.

The U.S. bankruptcy code allows alleged fraudulent transfers to be “voided”, if made two years before Chapter 11 filings and, if the transfers were made with the intention to defraud a bankrupt estate.

A spokesman for Bankman-Fried declined to comment.

U.S. prosecutors have called Bankman-Fried the mastermind of a fraud that led to FTX's collapse, while he himself has pleaded not guilty to several criminal charges.