Former FTX executive Ryan Salame has pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange, less than a month before the trial against founder Sam Bankman-Fried is set to begin.
At a court hearing in Manhattan on Thursday, Salame, who co-led the exchange’s main Bahamian entity FTX Digital Markets and became a big Republican political donor, admitted to conspiring to make unlawful political contributions and conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business.
The 30-year-old said he had made donations in his own name totalling tens of millions of dollars to candidates in the run-up to the 2022 midterms, which were “funded by transfers from the bank accounts of an Alameda subsidiary”, referring to the FTX-affiliated trading firm.