The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, and Zixiao (Gary) Wang, the former Chief Technology Officer of FTX Trading Ltd. (FTX), for their roles in a multiyear scheme to defraud equity investors in FTX, the crypto trading platform co-founded by Samuel Bankman-Fried and Wang. Investigations into other securities law violations and into other entities and persons relating to the alleged misconduct are ongoing. According to the SEC’s complaint, between 2019 and 2022, Ellison, at the direction of Bankman-Fried, furthered the scheme by manipulating the price ... (full story)

Two former top executives of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto trading empire have pleaded guilty to federal charges and are cooperating in the criminal case against the disgraced crypto entrepreneur, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York said on Wednesday night. The two are Caroline Ellison, who was the chief executive of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s crypto trading company, Alameda Research, and Gary Wang, a founder of the crypto exchange FTX. The guilty pleas and cooperation agreements are a major advance in the fraud case against Mr. Bankman-Fried, who is in U.S. custody after agreeing to be extradited from the ... (full story)