FTX spent $40M on food, flights, and hotels in just 9 months: Court filings

FTX’s Bahamian company expended a staggering volume of revenue on luxury motels and accommodation, flights and meals in the nine months in advance of the exchange’s collapse, court docket filings have uncovered. 

According to individual bankruptcy court docket documents reviewed by Organization Insider, FTX Digital Marketplaces went as a result of $40 million between very last January and September, before submitting for bankruptcy in November simply because of “liquidity issues.”

More than $15 million went on luxurious hotels and lodging, with $5.8 million of that at a single vacation resort — the Albany Lodge. This is the luxurious vacation resort is the place Sam Bankman-Fried lived in his $30 million penthouse until his arrest, the report included.

All over $3.6 million went on the Grand Hyatt, a 4-star hotel that hosted British royalty in March. There was also $800,000 used at the 5-star Rosewood vacation resort.

In addition, just about $7 million was spent on foods and leisure, with all over 50 % of that on catering products and services, according to the documents. Just about $4 million was invested on flights and over $500,000 was invested on postage and shipping.

FTX even created a private deal with an air provider to fly their Amazon orders from a Miami depot given that the e-commerce giant did not supply to the Bahamas, in accordance to London’s Monetary Instances.

The FT included that the company also supplied Bahamas workers with a “full suite of autos and gasoline covered for all employees [and] endless, total expense included trips to any office globally.”

In December, a former staff uncovered the extent of the company’s abnormal luxurious expenses, expressing it was “cult-like.” “The whole operation was iconically and moronically inefficient,” she reported at the time.

Connected: US authorities launch page to notify FTX’s alleged victims about SBF’s circumstance

FTX also manufactured several donations to local charities and businesses in the Bahamas.

There has been speculation that some of these donations could have to be returned as the Caribbean island country attempts to move on, according to a Jan. 8 report in nearby media.

Bankman-Fried entered a plea of not guilty to eight criminal fees in the U.S. District Court docket in the Southern District of New York on Jan. 3.