FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

San Francisco, March 28 (IANS) Sam Bankman-Fried, the co-founder and CEO of collapsed crypto exchange FTX, was on Thursday sentenced to 25 years in prison in the US for seven counts of conspiracy and fraud charges.

Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered a 240-month sentence and a 60-month sentence to be served consecutively, reports The Verge.

“On obstruction of justice, I find that Bankman-Fried's text to the former general counsel did, in fact, constitute attempted witness tampering. I make 3 perjury findings based on trial testimony,” the judge said.

The customers of FTX lost $8 billion and Bankman-Fried “falsely testified about when he learned of the missing $8 billion”.

Bankman-Fried is already in custody and has been residing in the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) since August 11, 2023.

Last November, the FTX CEO was found guilty on all seven counts related to fraud and money laundering.

The US Attorney’s office at the Southern District of New York had said in a statement that he perpetrated one of the biggest financial frauds in American history -- a multibillion-dollar scheme designed to make him the 'King of Crypto’.

“While the cryptocurrency industry might be new and the players like Sam Bankman-Fried might be new, this kind of corruption is as old as time. This case has always been about lying, cheating, and stealing, and we have no patience for it,” said US Attorney Damian Williams.

FTX -- once the world's second-largest cryptocurrency exchange -- filed for bankruptcy in November 2022.