For a time,everyone loved Sam Bankman-Fried. Everyone kept insisting he was off-the-charts brilliant,the entrepreneur who would create the future.
Gary Hardgrave said he took immediate action to terminate all involvement with Changjiang Currency Exchange after a sting operation by the Australian Federal Police.
Police swooped on suspected members of the “Long River” Australia-wide crime syndicate,accusing them of serious financial crime.
The fraud against an investment house tied to one of America’s biggest companies,TPG Capital,sounds more suited to the pages of a modern-day financial crime thriller.
Former Berndale Capital Securities boss Stavro D’Amore and the trading house’s director Daniel Kirby are accused of misusing client funds and providing false information.
Stavro D’Amore was once the CEO of the fourth-biggest seller of high-risk financial derivatives in Australia.
Thousands of reports are filed each year alleging wrongdoing by people connected to failed companies,but ASIC only pursues less than 3 per cent.
Amberjit Endow promised high-profile investors – including a former AFL champion – returns of up to 40 per cent in six months for lending him money to purchase what he claimed were Indian government-issued bonds.
Collapsed crypto exchange FTX’s founder Sam Bankman-Fried fitted every entrepreneurial cliché of the past two decades - and the finance industry loved him for it.
Experts say a plea deal for the cryptocurrency exchange boss is unlikely as US authorities tend to negotiate with lower-level staff.
The collapse of a major trading house in Australia has again raised questions about the practice of selling financial services licences.