The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) have hit former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison and former FTX co-founder Gary Wang with fresh fraud charges.
The new charges from the SEC and CFTC come as the pair plead guilty to federal fraud charges filed by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) earlier on Dec. 22.
SEC states that Ellison and Wang were charged for their role in the “multiyear scheme to defraud equity investors in FTX,” with the SEC also investigating whether other securities laws were violated as well.
The SEC alleges that Ellison, under the direction of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, furthered the scheme by manipulating the price of FTX Token (FTT), which is described as a crypto security token in the document. The said manipulation was conducted by “purchasing large quantities on the open market to prop up its price,” which took effect between 2019 and 2022.
As for the CFTC’s charges, amendments were made to its Dec. 13 fraud filing against Samuel Bankman-Fried, FTX Trading, and Alameda Research to now include Ellison and Wang as named defendants.
The amended complaint now lays charges against Ellison for “fraud and material misrepresentations in connection with the sale of digital asset commodities in interstate commerce.” As for Wang, the former FTX exec has…
