Washington, D.C. — The Commodity Futures Trading Commission today filed fraud charges against Caroline Ellison, Alameda CEO, and Gary Wang, Alameda and FTX Co-Founder, in an amended complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The CFTC initially filed this fraud action on December 13 against Samuel Bankman-Fried, FTX Trading Ltd. (FTX), and Alameda Research LLC (Alameda), charging a fraudulent scheme that caused the loss of over $8 billion in FTX customer deposits. [See CFTC Press Release No. 8638-22].
The amended complaint charges Ellison and Wang with engaging in a fraudulent scheme, along with the previously charged defendants. The amended complaint charges Ellison with fraud and material misrepresentations in connection with the sale of digital asset commodities in interstate commerce, and charges Wang with fraud in connection with the sale of digital asset commodities in interstate commerce.
As alleged in the amended complaint, Wang created features in the code underlying the FTX trading platform that allowed Alameda to maintain an essentially unlimited line of credit on FTX. As further alleged, at Bankman-Fried’s direction, FTX executives including Wang created other exceptions to FTX’s standard processes that allowed Alameda to have an unfair advantage when transacting on the platform, including quicker execution times and an exemption from the platform’s distinctive...
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