FTX Founder SBF Shipped to Oklahoma by way of 'Con Air' After Unauthorized Jailhouse Interview – Decrypt

FTX co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried isn’t killing time with Sean “Diddy” Combs in New York anymore. 

Following a behind-bars look on the “The Tucker Carlson Present” earlier this month, the one-time crypto wunderkind has been shipped to Oklahoma.

Bankman-Fried is at the moment being held at FTC Oklahoma Metropolis, a switch heart with round 1,450 inmates, in line with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons. Days in the past, he was at Metropolitan Detention Heart (MDC) in Brooklyn, the place the previous hip-hop mogul awaits trial. It’s possible the penultimate cease for SBF earlier than he lands in a jail the place he’ll serve the remainder of his 25-year sentence for defrauding customers of the trade he co-founded. 

As an alternative of taking an extended bus trip, typically described by inmates as “diesel remedy,” Bankman-Fried possible hitched a trip by way of “Con Air,” in line with Sam Mangel, a white-collar jail guide.

“You’re shackled on an airplane,” Mangel instructed Decrypt. “It’s a normally very previous [McDonnell Douglas] DC-9 that has no facilities in any respect.”

The disgraced 33-year-old, who celebrated his birthday across the time of his unsanctioned jailhouse interview, was awoken round 3 a.m. Jap Time earlier than saying goodbye to MDC, The Wall Avenue Journal first reported, citing an individual conversant in the matter.

For Bankman-Fried, the power’s “barrack-style” residing house for high-profile inmates had been house since August 2023, when his bail was revoked over witness tampering considerations.

Bankman-Fried was sentenced after a Manhattan jury discovered him responsible on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy. To at the present time, he maintains his innocence, lately saying, “I don’t suppose I’m a prison,” as he works towards interesting his conviction.

Bankman-Fried’s trial uncovered a sweeping fraud scheme at FTX, which concerned secretly siphoning billions of {dollars} in buyer funds to finance dangerous investments, donate to U.S. politicians, and buy luxurious actual property within the Bahamas—the place the agency was primarily based.

It’s unlikely that Bankman-Fried shall be held in Oklahoma for lengthy, Mangel mentioned. A lot of the guide’s purchasers are held there for lower than two weeks earlier than being despatched elsewhere.

Bankman-Fried lately broke his silence on X, previously generally known as Twitter. Final month, he mused concerning the problem of firing staff and company administration.

Bankman-Fried’s authorized workforce has pushed him to serve out his sentence nearer to his mother and father’ house close to Stanford College in California, per The Wall Avenue Journal.

Bankman-Fried will possible find yourself in a minimal-security facility, probably in Lompoc, California, Mangel mentioned. Final Might, he was instructed he was heading to jail in Mendota, California, in line with a separate report from The Wall Avenue Journal.

Although his mother and father are reportedly pursuing a pardon from U.S. President Donald Trump, Bankman-Fried’s identify nonetheless serves as a wedge on Capitol Hill. On Thursday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren hurled it towards Paul Atkins, Trump’s decide to steer the Securities and Change Fee, in the course of the former commissioner’s affirmation listening to.

“Mr. Atkins has spent virtually his whole profession serving to billionaire CEOs like Sam Bankman-Fried, who dedicated one of many largest monetary frauds in U.S. historical past,” she mentioned, referring to work finished beforehand by Atkins’ consultancy agency.

Edited by James Rubin