- Sam Bankman-Fried has been on a media apology tour following the collapse of his crypto company.
- Convicted con artist Anna Sorokin (aka Anna Delvey) thinks “he’s just trying to save himself.”
- “It’s a Ponzi scheme what he did,” she told Insider.
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Convicted fraudster Anna Sorokin thinks Sam Bankman-Fried’s media apology spree was disingenuous garbage, she told Insider.
“He’s just trying to save himself,” she told Insider on Thursday. “That would be his defense if prosecuted: ‘I didn’t know Alameda was in debt’ — which is a bloody crazy claim — that it’s the girlfriend’s fault.”
Sorokin was herself convicted in 2019 for defrauding banks and hotels out of around $200,000 – a saga later adapted into Netflix’s limited series Inventing Anna. Using the false name “Anna Delvey,” she presented herself as a wealthy heiress and sought funds to set up a project called the Anna Delvey Foundation.
Bankman-Fried is also fighting allegations of fraud – on a much larger scale.
His crypto exchange firm FTX collapsed in November over reports it appeared to be mixing funds with Alameda Research, a separate investment company he owned and run by Caroline Ellison, who he says was also a former romantic partner. Multiple federal agencies are investigating his actions, which could result in civil or criminal charges.
Bankman-Fried has since apologized to the media, claiming he believes he could have avoided FTX’s troubles if he had just focused more on risk management and that he could have saved the exchange from collapse if he would have had more time to find investors. He said he gave media interviews against the advice of his lawyers.
Other FTX executives didn’t seem to share his optimism. A top lawyer for the company during the collapse said Bankman-Fried’s plan to bail out the stock market by investing more had a “0% chance of success,” the New York Times reported. Days later, John Jay Ray III, the corporate turnaround manager who took over as CEO of FTX after Bankman-Fried resigned, was appalled at the state of the company.
“Never in my career have I witnessed such a complete failure of corporate controls and a complete lack of reliable financial information as here,” Ray wrote in the company’s bankruptcy filing.
Sorokin says Bankman-Fried’s pleas to the media are disingenuous.
“It’s a Ponzi scheme what he did,” she told Insider.
“He’s just looking for pity”
Through his media interviews, Bankman-Fried is attempting to cultivate a more innocent public image, Sorokin speculated. She doesn’t buy it.
“If he were a woman, he would be portrayed as either a total fraud, or totally inadequate and unfit, or both at the same time,” she said. “Now he gets to play this awkward, non-threatening, seemingly well-meaning, serious guy trying to please customers.”
She believes Bankman-Fried never expected to get into the situation he’s in now and would have gone ahead with his alleged plan if Binance CEO and co-founder Changpeng Zhao didn’t launch the crypto version of a “bank run.” would have initiated on FTX.
“He never expected it to explode like that,” she said. “It’s all down to CZ.”
Sorokin is also skeptical of Bankman-Fried’s claim that he only has $100,000 left. She doesn’t think it would be enough to cover his normal expenses, let alone make sense for a person who has poured millions into political advocacy groups.
“I don’t think he only had crypto. It’s not so widespread that he can get one through normal living expenses. He’s just looking for pity,” she said. “I’m sure all PACs accepted fiat, not crypto. He couldn’t live entirely on company money alone.”
Neither Bankman-Fried nor his attorneys immediately responded to Insider’s request for comment.
Sam Bankman Fried. by Williams/CQ-Roll Call Inc via Getty Images
Sorokin finished her time in prison in 2021 and repaid all the banks and other institutions she used the money she received from Netflix, but she’s still appealing her criminal conviction. During her trial, her attorney argued that her actions should be understood as civil and not criminal disputes. She may have been overwhelmed, the attorney argued, but she always intended to repay every penny.
She is currently living under house arrest in downtown Manhattan while pending appeals against a possible deportation back to Germany.
Much like Bankman-Fried, she has claimed her original plans were genuine and legitimate. The main reason the Anna Delvey Foundation didn’t succeed, her lawyer argued in court, was that she didn’t have the managerial skills — not because she was trying to steal.
However, the difference between their situations is in billions of dollars. Sorokin acknowledged that Bankman-Fried’s narrative that he was blind rather than willfully exploiting FTX’s clients may be legitimate. But it doesn’t comfort her.
“I don’t know which is worse – that he actually wasn’t in control or if he’s trying to cover it up now. It’s bloody scary if he was that careless.”