Among the expenditures made on behalf of failed crypto exchange FTX appears to be the purchase of a $2.5 million yacht for Samuel Trabucco, the former co-CEO of Alameda Research.
FTX and financial documents: $2.5 million in cryptocurrency funds used to buy a yacht
Recently, a new financial document was filed by FTX, the crypto exchange that went bankrupt in November 2022, detailing all transfers and purchases made on behalf of former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF).
In a first analysis, under the section entitled “Statement of Financial Affairs for Non-Individuals Filing for Bankruptcy”, it appears that SBF received over $1 billion in cash in the year prior to FTX’s collapse.
Not only that, but the list of expenses made with FTX funds also appears to include the purchase of a $2.5 million yacht for Samuel Trabucco, the former co-CEO of Alameda Research.
Other lavish purchases made with FTX funds are also linked to multi-million dollar properties in the names of other insiders, such as former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison.
The list also includes transfers to political groups, such as a $500,000 donation in the name of FTX co-founder Nishad Singh to “People for the Progressive Governance”.
FTX and Samuel Trabucco’s yacht: where has the former co-CEO of Alameda Research gone?
The current state of affairs for FTX’s senior members is that SBF has pleaded not guilty to criminal fraud charges relating to the alleged misuse of FTX customers’ funds.
Other former senior members such as Gary Wang, Ellison and Singh have reportedly agreed to plea bargains with US law enforcement.
Finally, former FTX co-CEO Ryan Salame has invoked his Fifth Amendment rights and declared himself ‘unavailable as a witness’.
In this scenario, however, there is one person who seems to have managed to lose his trail: Samuel Trabucco.
According to a January 2023 report, Trabucco was last seen in the Bahamas in the spring of 2022, visiting former MIT classmates. His 52-foot yacht, named ‘Soak my Deck’, on the other hand, was first reported in December 2022 in a Financial Times editorial.
The disappearance and the crypto-community theories about Trabucco
Since the FTX collapse scandal, Samuel Trabucco has not been heard from, not even on his Twitter profile.
In reality, however, it was his colleague Caroline Ellison who allegedly accused him of mismanaging the Alameda company in 2019, when he was CEO.
His silence and subsequent absence from the public eye had given rise to several theories within the crypto community as to his true involvement in the collapse of FTX. And indeed, as early as December 2022, there were those who claimed that Trabucco had been blocked by law enforcement.