‘Crypto King’ Sam Bankman-Fried guilty of FTX fraud

US ‘Crypto King’ Sam Bankman-Fried has been found guilty of fraud and money laundering at a trial in New York. 

The jury delivered its verdict after less than five hours of deliberations. 

Bankman-Fried, 31, once ran one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges and was one of the most public faces in the industry. 

He was arrested last year after his firm, FTX, went bankrupt. 

He will be sentenced on 28 March next year and could face decades in prison. 

“Sam Bankman-Fried perpetrated one of the biggest financial frauds in American history – a multibillion-dollar scheme designed to make him the king of crypto,” US attorney Damian Williams said in a statement after the verdict.

“This case has always been about lying, cheating and stealing, and we have no patience for it,” he added.

Bankman-Fried was accused of lying to investors and lenders and stealing billions of dollars from the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, helping to precipitate its collapse. He was charged with seven counts of fraud and money laundering.