FTX and its Employees Went on Real Estate Buying Spree Across Bahamas: Report

FTX, its former chief Sam Bankman-Fried’s parents, as well as senior executives of the fallen crypto exchange, purchased at least 19 properties worth almost $121 million in the Bahamas, according to new reports.

Official property records verified by Reuters reveal that FTX bought luxury beachfront homes, including seven condominiums in a penthouse in a luxury resort called Albany, over the past two years. The total cost was almost $72 million.

• The properties’ deeds show that the unit was to be used as “residences for key personnel” of the crypto exchange.
• The Albany property was the most expensive deal and was worth $30 million, the documents of which were signed by the president of FTX Property, Ryan Salame.
• FTX’s former head of engineering, Nishad Singh, its co-founder Gary Wang, along with Bankman-Fried, bought three apartments at One Cable Beach and a beachfront residence in New Providence.
• The documents of another home, built in the 1700s with beach access in Old Fort Bay, show Bankman-Fried’s parents, Stanford University law professors  – Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried – as signatories, and the property was to be used as a “vacation home.”
• While the mode of payment of these purchases is still not known, a spokesman for the professors asserted only that the duo had been trying to return the property to FTX before the bankruptcy proceedings.
• The new development surfaces just days after FTX’s new chief executive, John Ray, revealed in a court filing that corporate funds were used to “purchase homes and other personal items for employees and advisors.”
• Meanwhile, FTX Property had shelled out over $8 million on a group of houses to be used as FTX’s office headquarters in addition to $4.5 million on a nearly 5-acre plot of land to be developed into offices.