Cryptocurrency FTX, the parents of its founder Sam Bankman-Fried, and the company’s top executives bought at least 19 properties in the Bahamas worth about $121 million over the past two years, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing official property records.
As per Reuters
The report says that FTX Property Holdings, which is a part of FTX, bought 15 properties worth about $100 million in 2021 and 2022. The most expensive piece of property ever bought was a penthouse at a resort called Albany that cost $30 million. Its deed, which was signed on March 17 by Ryan Salame, president of FTX Property, showed that it was meant to be a “residence for key personnel.”
Reuters said it couldn’t figure out who lived in the apartments. But last week, Bankman-Fried told Reuters that he lived with nine other coworkers in a house and that FTX gave them free meals and a service “like Uber” to get around the island.
Bankman-Fried, Gary Wang, an FTX co-founder, and Nishad Singh, the former head of engineering at FTX, are said to have bought three condos at One Cable Beach that cost between $950,000 and $2 million and will be used for their own homes.
Read More: FTX and Alameda frontman Sam Bankman-Fried Relation between Mainstream Media
Sam Bankman-Fried Parents
Another property is in Old Fort Bay, which used to be a British colonial fort built in the 1700s. Bankman-parents, Fried’s law professors at Stanford University, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, signed papers for this property. One of the June 15 documents says that the house will be used as a “vacation home.”
Their spokesman told Reuters that the parents have been trying to give the property back to FTX. “Since before the bankruptcy proceedings, Mr. Bankman and Ms. Fried have been seeking to return the deed to the company and are awaiting further instructions,” the spokesperson said.
Two of the units at FTX Property were marked for business use. There was a group of houses worth $8.55 million that was FTX’s headquarters, and a 4.95-acre plot of land worth $4.5 million that was also supposed to be turned into office space for the cryptocurrency exchange. According to the report, the FTX headquarters are now empty, the signs have been taken down, and the land is also empty.
General Department Bahamas
The Registrar General’s Department in the Bahamas was where Reuters looked for property records. A security guard told the news outlet that FTX employees have not been back to the headquarters since they left earlier this month.
On November 11, FTX Group filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection due to a sudden lack of cash. Alameda Research, a trading firm that was connected to the crypto exchange, is said to have used customer funds to make risky bets, which led to the collapse of the exchange. The top 50 creditors of FTX Group are owed $3.1 billion, but the company only has $1.24 billion in cash on hand.
