After his FTX crypto empire collapsed in November last year, Sam Bankman-Fried portrayed himself as a hapless but well-intentioned chief executive who made a series of calamitous mistakes, but never knowingly committed fraud. Prosecutors didn’t buy it. Bankman-Fried was arrested the following month and charged with orchestrating a scheme to bilk investors and FTX customers out of billions of dollars. Here’s what you need to know before SBF’s trial begins on Oct. 3.

What started out as a trading venture focused on digital assets grew into a sprawling crypto empire. (More than 100 entities were included when FTX filed for bankruptcy.) At its heart there were two organizations that mattered most: Alameda Research, a arbitrage trading business that Bankman-Fried co-founded in 2017, and FTX Trading Ltd., a crypto exchange based in the Bahamas and founded in 2019. All told, he raised more than $1.8 billion from equity investors, the SEC said, and FTX’s subsequent bankruptcy estate has recovered around $7 billion in assets to date.

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The Crypto Fraud Case Against Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX