I can't imagine why he wouldn't flee.
If i was committing ~9 figures worth of fraud, I would have huge stashes of 1oz gold bars buried in countries without extradition like Vietnam and venezuela.
He seems like he had no exit plan thought up.
Madoff got 150 years in prison, and i dont see any reason why SBF would get any less.
Just because a country doesn't have an extradition treaty doesn't mean it won't extradite on a case by case basis. The vast majority of countries are signed on to at least one international treaty that covers extradition like the United Nations Convention against Corruption.
People like Ghosan are safe because they flee to countries that won't extradite their own nationals as a matter of long standing policy. They have no problem extraditing troublemakers from other nations, especially under international pressure.
See Vietnam's latest extradition for example [1], which doesn't have an extradition treaty with the US and they aren't even on the best of terms. The only way they could get away in Madagascar is if the authorities there didn't have the resources to capture them - a small promise of USAID from the State department would be enough to put extradition on the table.
I think this is the best argument that SBF didn't intend to commit fraud, so much as fraudulent activity with the expectation that it'd all work out somehow. If the exchange contagion was quelled (partially by his actions backstopping other liquidity crises), and cryptocurrencies went generally up, and FTT was strengthened by FTX's appearance of strength, then all of these problems would have gone away.
If he had simple fraudulent intent (i.e. personal enrichment at the expense of customers), he would have had a plan. One that included adequate cash socked away in appropriate locations. Something much more well-thought out than "a US-friendly island 2 hrs by plane from SDNY".
> Madoff got 150 years in prison, and i dont see any reason why SBF would get any less.
I actually see one: SBF mostly mishandled unregulated magic beans on an unregulated exchange (FTX.com).
The unregulated magic beans on the regulated exchange FTX.US are still there, waiting for withdrawal, according to his tweets.
US customers weren’t even allowed to register on FTX.com, which was outside the US.
Anyway, he still kinda defrauded Sequoia and friends, who didn’t buy magic beans but actual shares of the FTX exchanges (not sure about whether .com, .us or both)! But maybe he still gets less than 150 years..
This is the guy that's bragging about committing fraud on live interviews... even after the screwup he didn't have the wherewithal to have an escape plan.
Then again, realistically a disappearing act of this magnitude would likely require access to a lot of trusted people to pull it off. Plastic surgery, boat captains, someone to plant false leads, security, etc.
You'd have to be able to get to Vietman or Venezuela. I'm guessing he was being watched like a hawk. They could have arrested him at anytime, but having more evidence before an arrest is always a better position.
If you committed a billion in fraud, you probably wouldn't be shitposting on Twitter or giving interviews that made a prosecuter's case easier, either.
Nan, you probably would not.
Do you have somebody in Vietnam or Venezuela, with a small army of mercenaries, and that you trust enough to hide those stashes of gold ?
Oh yeah, and how exactly do you imagine this going ?
You're going to ask to see a cartel boss and tell him you have $10B in untraceable money, and you need a small army - you're willing to pay 1,000 men - $100,000 for the next 10 years ? They will most probably start to torture you to know where the money is, before you finish these words.
That's a fun mental exercise btw - imagine you have $1B now - let's say illegal money you need to keep. How do you proceed ?
Pay cash for a field of shit land in the sticks, start purchasing hundreds of totaled cars (also with cash), remove or ruin engine/tires/seats/things of value, place the cars in the field, place the money inside the cars, and throw up a fence with no trespassing signs on it.
How much does one of those soldiers get for ratting him out to whichever country/cartel is willing to pay 0.0001% of that as a finder’s fee or agree not to notice that all of his stuff went missing shortly before capture? If you’re hiring mercenaries willing to stand off law enforcement, what keeps some of them from realizing that they can kill you and get their money all at once?
This is the prepper fallacy: stockpiling riches but not allies makes you a target, not safe. Maybe you can get away with it if you’re an incredibly charismatic cult leader but most people are going to be much better off with friends and family than a pile of Krugerrands and guns.
That might be the inexperience. He used pretty much every outlet out there to talk about his story and what really surprised me was the naïveté of SBF and Caroline.
It's an island. Tough to get off even if not arrested. I'm sure if he tried to get on a plane all kinds of "problems" would have appeared (computer not working, ...) If he tried a boat, "oh look, it's leaking oil, we can't let it leave and pollute the waters".
Bahamas will have absolutely not let him get out of their sight. They have so much egg on their face.
I can even see the titles if he left "Did he bribed Bahamas officials to look the other way?" ...
It is an island, and it's not that hard to get on a boat and sail away. Carlos Ghosn was able to be smuggled out of Japan on an airplane while under house-arrest. I imagine Japan is much, MUCH, harder to be smuggled out of than the Bahamas :)
He was being followed. The minute he boarded a boat the USCG would be enroute with a cutter to intradict and perform a thorough safety inspection in international waters, perfectly in line with their law enforement and maritime safety duties.
How many of those other countries have people who lost money? What are the odds that some of the people he ripped off have very muscular friends who want to have a private chat about repayment timeframes? What are the odds that they know the kind of people you’d need to get fake ID or live undercover?
Seems a bit ignorant of politics. For instance he planned to travel to Dubai which would obviously extradite him. Silver spoon son of Stanford profs probably thought his donations made him invulnerable. Thankfully it’s embarrassing enough to the right people that he is wrong.
Also, what does he offer any of those places. I guess he might be able to help NK with their crypto scams, but I'd prefer a US prison to even the better off in NK. Places don't just accept people running from the USG for shits and giggles, Russia accepted snowden to rub it in the US's face, not out of any belief he was a wronged hero.
