Sam Bankman-Fried lied to the world as he built his cryptocurrency empire at FTX, telling only his friends and girlfriend the truth about what was happening, prosecutors said on the first day of a historic fraud trial.
Nathan Rehn, an assistant US attorney, painted a picture of the 31-year-old as a calculated criminal who used investor deposits at FTX as a personal bank account before the company collapsed into bankruptcy a year ago. He said that only Bankman-Fried’s small inner circle knew that he was taking customer money to fund his lifestyle.