by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack
LITERARY SDNY, Oct 11 -- Eleventh day of October and worlds collided, in the SBF trial. Caroline Ellison was on direct examination for the second day when she was asked if she and Sam ever used coded language, like in a Mafia movie or a recent SDNY felon in possession case, Instagram messages with euphemisms for a gun.
Yes, she said - about the Chinese bribe.
She went on to describe one billion dollars in FTX funds -- well, really FTX customer's pilfered funds - getting frozen on two exchanges in China. How to get it unfrozen? Sam wanted it done, effective altruism be damned. Through a David Ma a bribery plan was hatched.
$150 million in payments to Chinese government officials, through the accounts of Thai prostitutes. You can never be too careful, when saving future generations, as Sam or the UN might say. The UN and its boss were adept at taking Chinese bribes. Worlds were colliding.
Another FTX employee named Handi, whose father was himself a Chinese government officials and apparently one of the (few?) clean ones, opposed the payment of the bribes. And who on Signal mocked her, as having her father "immediately turn us all in"?
It was Sam Trabucco, the co-CEO of Alameda Research at the time. Trabucco, who some nicknamed Tabasco (like Trump's lawyer in the first SDNY E. Jean Carroll case) had neither been charged nor appeared without notice in court to plead guilty, like Caroline and Gary and Nishad and most recently Ryan Salame.
Would Trabucco be coming in to testify with a use-immunity deal, like Adam Yedidia? There was one more get-out-of-jail-free card in the deck, prosecutors had said.
Who would get it?
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