SBF mimics the innocent lamb. Facts say otherwise CS president Axel Lehmann sees capital outflows stop

In June 2017, then-U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was questioned by a U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee about his ties to Russia. The allegations are serious: Sessions is said to have discussed the presidential election with the Russian ambassador. Sessions does not deny the meetings under oath, but says he has no memory of them. During the interrogation, his memory fails him about 30 times. At the same time, he has a mischievous smile. Sessions, notorious as a tough dog, imitates the funny but harmless grandpa. The performance deserves an Oscar.

Fallen crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) is now pursuing a similar tactic. Since his crypto exchange FTX had to go bankrupt, he has been giving interview after interview. The first on November 29 by crypto journalist Tiffany Fong, the last and since at least fourth The Wall Street Journal. His scam is always the same: SBF presents himself as a remorseful and confused professor who has made embarrassing mistakes, but has never deliberately set out to defraud clients or investors. In addition, SBF suffers from session syndrome: “I don’t know off the top of my head what procedures we use”, “I don’t know if we have violated the terms of use”, “I don’t know exactly what these criticisms are about”, “I know them exact details », «I wasn’t really involved in this process» When the interviewer asked what he was involved in as CEO, he got the casual answer: “I was working to keep FTX running.”

As with Sessions, you almost take it for SBF. With his knees drawn up and his shorts on, he sits on the couch like a little boy. Is this what a notorious scammer looks like?

The facts that come to light with the bankruptcy documents speak for themselves.

New York last Wednesday. Star journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin invites you to the annual DealBook conference. Speakers: Tiktok CEO Shou Chew, Blackrock CEO Larry Fink, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, ​​Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, Mark Zuckerberg, Volodymyr Selenkj, Benjamin Netanyahu… and neo-bankruptcy vulture Sam Bankman-Fried. He, who destroyed the savings of a million customers a few days ago, can present “his view of things”, can speak of mismanagement and his own mistakes, can eat chalk in public. He will be connected from the Bahamas. Far from the long arm of the American judiciary. Once again Sam Bankman-Fried plays the confused professor’s card, rattling good-naturedly and naively into the business trap. Again the sting pulls. At the end of the interview, Sam Bankman-Fried gets a round of applause.