U.S. prosecutors have reportedly connected Ryan Salame, the former co-CEO of FTX, to accounts under the names of Thai prostitutes in a bid to unfreeze funds tied to FTX and Alameda Research.
In a filing with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, prosecutors opposed Salame’s motion to vacate his guilty plea in a case involving campaign finance violations.
The motion accused Salame of using misleading and false assertions to evade his sentence for his involvement in a large-scale illegal campaign finance scheme and running an unlicensed money transmitting business.
Salame had withdrawn his petition to vacate his plea on Aug. 29, but Judge Lewis Kaplan has scheduled a hearing on Sept. 12 to address the matter.
Prosecutors described Salame’s attempt to challenge his plea as “shameless and self-serving,” arguing it lacked merit and came too late. Salame filed the petition after authorities indicated they might investigate his partner, Michelle Bond, who faces charges related to campaign finance violations.
The filing also included details from an April 2023 video conference call suggesting Salame’s involvement in efforts to unfreeze Alameda Research funds on Chinese exchanges, allegedly using bribery.
Notes from the call referenced former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s alleged payment of $150 million to Chinese officials to release $1 billion in frozen assets. Salame was allegedly part of the scheme, using personal information from Thai prostitutes to open crypto accounts.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon noted in the filing that there is evidence Salame was involved in unfreezing the accounts by setting up crypto trading accounts under these names.
Salame, who pleaded guilty in September 2023 to conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business and campaign finance fraud, was sentenced to 90 months in prison. He is scheduled to begin his sentence on Oct. 13.
Meanwhile, Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison, with an appeal underway. Other former FTX executives, including Caroline Ellison, Nishad Singh, and Gary Wang, await sentencing following their guilty pleas.
