FTX Seeks to Recover $700 Million from Sam Bankman Fried's Affiliated Funds
Now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX has sued a former aide for Hilary Clinton and the former aide's investment firm, K5 Global, to retrieve $700 million in funds.
On Thursday, the company filed a complaint in Wilmington, Delaware, bankruptcy court, asking back the $700 million its founder Sam Bankman-Fried transferred to K5 entities in 2022.
The lawsuit names K5 Global, Mount Olympus Capital, and SGN Albany Capital, as well as affiliated entities and K5 Global co-owners Michael Kives and Bryan Baum, as defendants.
It claims that Bankman-Fried was a "profligate patron" who sent millions to Kives, K5 Global, and Baum after he attended a social event hosted by Kives in 2022.
“True to Kives’s reputation as a high-profile ‘super-networker,’ the attendees at the dinner party included a former Presidential candidate, top actors and musicians, reality TV stars and multiple billionaires,” the suit said.
According to the complaint, Bankman-Fried described Kives as "probably, the most connected person I've ever met," and "a one-stop shop" for political relationships and celebrity partnerships.
The suit claimed that while FTX-affiliated crypto trading firm Alameda Research transferred the funds to Kives, Baum, and K5 Global, it did so as coming from shell companies SGN Albany and Mount Olympus Capital.
In one poor investment, according to the complaint, a Bankman-Fried-controlled shell company used $214 million in funds from FTX to buy a minority stake in Kendall Jenner's 818 Tequila brand, at a time when the tequila company's assets were valued at just $2.94 million in its filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
FTX has sought the return of funds transferred from Alameda Research that ended up in SGN Albany Capital
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