Former co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets, Ryan Salame, has reportedly been associated with a bribe to Chinese officials, as revealed by US prosecutors.
Court documents filed on September 5 revealed that Salame was allegedly involved in a scheme to unfreeze more than $1 billion in FTX and Alameda Research funds that had been locked in Chinese exchanges since 2021.
In April 2023, Assistant US Attorneys indicated that former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried arranged a $150 million bribe to Chinese officials to recover the funds. Prosecutors claim that Salame's role in this operation was opening accounts under the identities of Thai sex workers to enable self-trading.
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Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, testified at the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried and confirmed that the bribe was paid. Assistant US Attorney Danielle Sassoon backed up these claims, saying that there is evidence linking Salame to efforts to unfreeze the funds.
The September 5 filings also address Salame's motion to withdraw his guilty plea as part of illegal campaign finance charges—a motion he later scrapped. The prosecution described the request as baseless, "shameless," and "self-serving" and added:
Having purported to accept full responsibility for his actions prior to sentencing, Salame now resorts to inaccurate, incomplete, and outright false assertions in an effort to evade the sentence imposed for his involvement in an illegal campaign finance scheme that was unprecedented in scale, and for his role in funneling billions of dollars through an unlicensed money transmitting business.
Salame's guilty plea was related to accusations that he illegally funneled thousands of dollars from FTX to fund the political campaign of his partner, Michelle Bond. After admitting to conspiracy and campaign finance violations, he was sentenced to 90 months in prison, with his term scheduled to begin in October.
He tried to retract the plea after an investigation into Bond began, arguing that this breached a verbal agreement with prosecutors that she would not face charges.
Although the motion to withdraw was abandoned, a hearing remains scheduled for September 12, with Judge Lewis Kaplan set to oversee the proceedings.
Salame's case highlights the continuing legal fallout from the FTX collapse, which has led to legal action against several other former executives, including Bankman-Fried, who received a 25-year prison sentence.
