Court filings of the FTX exchange show that the company spent a huge amount of money on luxury hotel stays, flights and meals in the nine months before the bankruptcy.
According to Valx and quoted by Coin Telegraph, according to the bankruptcy court documents of the FTX exchange, the said expenses between January and September of last year amounted to 40 million dollars.
More than 15 million dollars have been spent on accommodation costs, of which 5.8 million dollars were related to a residence called Albany Hotel. This is the luxury resort where Sam Benkman Fried lived in his $30 million penthouse until his arrest.
About 3.6 million dollars have been spent on the expenses related to staying at the luxurious Grand Hyatt hotel. This hotel hosted the British royal family in March. Also, $800,000 was spent at the five-star Rosewood residence.
In addition, documents show that $7 million was spent on food and entertainment, half of which was related to catering costs. Nearly 4 million dollars were spent on flights and more than half a million dollars were spent on postal services.
The Financial Times also revealed that the FTX exchange had an exclusive contract with an airline to pick up Amazon orders from a warehouse in Miami and deliver them to the Bahamas. The Bahamas is not included in Amazon’s delivery list.
The magazine also added that the company provided all its Bahamian employees with a full set of cars and their fuel costs. In addition, all their expenses for traveling to other offices of this exchange in all parts of the world were covered.
In December, a former employee of the exchange exposed the extent of the company’s luxury spending, calling it “like a cult.” He said at the time:
The entire operation of the organization was symbolically and stupidly inefficient.
FTX Exchange has also made many donations to local organizations and charities in the Bahamas. Some reports in the country’s local press have speculated that some charities may be forced to return some of these donations to the courts.
Bankham Fried pleaded not guilty on January 3 to eight charges in the District Court for the Southern District of New York.
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