Outrageous Report Reveals Alameda Paid Massive Bribe to Chinese Officials Unfreezing $1,000,000,000

It seems that the news regarding SBF and Alameda continues to arrive. Check out the latest reports about the past moves below.

Caroline Ellison, a close confidant of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, has reportedly revealed that Alameda Research, the exchange’s trading arm, paid a bribe to the Chinese government to unfreeze a billion dollars.

According to court transcripts reported by The Inner City Press, Ellison, who was also the former CEO of Alameda, was questioned by United States Attorneys (AUSA) about her conversations with Bankman-Fried on the messaging app Signal.

She disclosed that Bankman-Fried instructed that all Signal chats be set to automatically delete after a certain amount of time.

Later, she admitted that Alameda had paid Chinese entities to unfreeze $1 billion following a money laundering investigation.

Says the transcripts, according to Inner City Press,

“AUSA: Did you speak in coded terms?

Ellison: Yes. When we gave a large bribe to China – our accounts were frozen in a money laundering investigation.

AUSA: How much was frozen in China?

Ellison: $1 billion. Sam wanted to find ways to address it.

AUSA: How were they unfrozen?

Ellison: Alameda paid a bribe to Chinese government officials

[Lawyers for] SBF: Objection, move to strike.

Judge Kaplan: I will strike that.”

Ellison explained that FTX executives David Ma and Constance Wang, who are both Chinese, tried various methods to release the frozen funds. Finally, they were able to communicate with the officials and discovered that sending $100 million to specific crypto addresses would unfreeze the funds. While Wang opposed this idea, Ma passed on the information to FTX.

“Ellison: Sam said Ma had found a way to get our accounts unfrozen, if we just sent to these crypto addresses, $100 million. It was November of 2021.

AUSA: Did you know who the recipient was?

Ellison: No

AUSA: Did you have a belief?

SBF’s lawyer: Objection!”

Just to refresh your memory, back in March, Bankman-Fried was charged by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for allegedly bribing Chinese officials with $40 million. This is significantly less than the $100 million that Ellison described in her testimony.