In the span of a year, Sam Bankman-Fried, who was formerly held in high esteem as a “King of Crypto,” went from being the CEO of FTX—a prominent cryptocurrency exchange—to being a prison inmate awaiting sentencing.
Bankman-Fried has strongly refuted the accusation of witness intimidation, but a federal court dissolved his release and the founder of FTX has been in prison since August.
His conviction on counts of fraud against investors and lenders as well as embezzling billions from FTX clients came down quickly earlier this month.
As reported by The Wall Street Journal on November 23, Bankman-Fried is still giving guards crypto advice from behind bars, even though he has retired from investing billions in companies and trading digital currencies.
Defense attorneys and the prison guards’ union have long complained about the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where he is being housed, claiming chronic understaffing and poor conditions.
The person in the know says that once a week he may have non-attorney visits and that he has a dedicated laptop for reviewing legal documents.
Bankman-Fried is roommates with Genaro García Luna, who was once Mexico’s minister of public security and was found guilty last year of assisting the Sinaloa cartel in importing more than 50 tons of cocaine into the United States. Juan Orlando Hernández, a former Honduran president now facing federal accusations of drug trafficking and weapons possession, is also housed in the facility.
According to prison analyst Bill Baroni, Bankman-Fried will likely bring his mackerel packets with him when he moves to federal prison since they are considered money under the jail system. When Baroni was a prisoner, he remembered having to pay four macks for a haircut.
