A US court has ordered fraud-convicted cryptocurrency entrepreneur Samuel Benjamin Bankman-Fried, commonly known as SBF, to forfeit about USD1 billion in assets, including two private jets, political donations, and countless crypto balances, the biggest item being his 55.2 million shares worth USD605 million in cryptocurrency trading firm Robinhood Markets.
On February 18, the United States District Court in the Southern District of New York issued a final order of forfeiture, a 70-page document detailing his assets to be forfeited. Included are his two private jets:
- Global 5000 N410AT (msn 9295) with related maintenance and engine logs, which has been parked at Hartford Bradley since January 2023. According to the US Federal Aviation Administration's aircraft register, the 17-year-old nine-seater aircraft was acquired by Capital Peak Aviation in December 2022 under fractional ownership, but the company informed ch-aviation that it was not the owner of the aircraft and that registration details were not up to date.
- 19-year-old Legacy 600 C6-BDE (msn 14500967), parked at Fort Lauderdale Executive since August 2022, according to ADS-B data. It was formerly operated by Trans Island Airways.
Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison in March 2024 after he had been found guilty on seven fraud and conspiracy counts in November 2023, having stolen USD8 billion from customers of the now-bankrupt FTX Trading cryptocurrency exchange.
He founded the FTX and Alameda Research cryptocurrency trading firms and became the "poster boy" for crypto, with FTX having a global reach with more than 130 international affiliates. However, allegations of fraud and mismanagement led to a mass withdrawal of customer deposits and FTX's subsequent bankruptcy filing on November 11, 2022. SBF was arrested in the Bahamas in December 2022 and extradited to the US, where he was convicted and sentenced following a high-profile trial.
