Another executive, Ryan Salame, whose political action committee hosted a happy hour at Guarding Against Pandemics’ Washington townhouse last year, is also under scrutiny over the tens of millions of dollars he contributed to Republicans. Last month, a top FTX executive, Nishad Singh, pleaded guilty to using company money to make millions of dollars in straw donations to Democratic campaigns and committees. And they are trying to determine whether he knew some of the funds that his organization received had been misappropriated from customers. The authorities are investigating whether Gabe Bankman-Fried, 28, and some of his colleagues were part of the same so-called straw donor scheme, five people familiar with the matter said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Prosecutors have said he recruited FTX executives and others to serve as proxies for the crypto exchange and make tens of millions of dollars in illegal political donations using customer money. The collapse of FTX prompted federal authorities to investigate allegations that sweeping fraud drove the exchange into bankruptcy in November, as well as potential campaign finance law violations by both brothers.įederal prosecutors in Manhattan have charged Sam Bankman-Fried, 31, with orchestrating a scheme to evade limits on corporate political donations. The group’s founder, Gabe Bankman-Fried, a former legislative assistant, started getting the rock star treatment: two White House meetings with senior staff and invitations to speak on panels with government officials.īut almost all the money raised by Guarding Against Pandemics appears to have come from Gabe Bankman-Fried’s brother, whom federal prosecutors have accused of misappropriating billions of dollars from customers of his crypto exchange, FTX. The group, Guarding Against Pandemics, raised more than $22 million in its first full year in 2021, turning it into an overnight lobbying force in Washington. And $3.3 million went toward the purchase of a luxurious townhouse a few blocks from the U.S. Another $1 million was spent on consulting and advertising expenses in a single year. Just over $375,000 financed a failed campaign in Colorado to increase taxes on cannabis sales in order to support pandemic research. The money flowed freely at a pandemic-prevention organization run by the younger brother of Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced cryptocurrency mogul.
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