Crypto Exchange FTX Wants to Receive a $71M Refund from Charities

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The FTX Foundation, a charitable arm of the group of companies, and Latona, a fictitious non-profit organization registered in the Bahamas, were a target of litigation by the crypto exchange.

It claimed that former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried had fraudulently embezzled assets from the exchange in order to finance donations amounting to approximately $71.5 million for the personal enrichment of Bankman-Fried and to build political capital.

The donations were made between February and October 2022, and were distributed to Lumen Bioscience, GreenLight Biosciences, Genetic Networks and 4J Therapeutics.

As part of this scheme, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has agreed to return $550,000 that it had received from the exchange as a donation.

FTX also filed a lawsuit against the bankrupt crypto lending platform Genesis, demanding the return of $4 billion, and sued SBF and other Bitcoin exchange executives for buying Embed at an inflated price. Bankman-Fried has been charged with 13 criminal offenses in June, and pleaded not guilty to any of the counts.