In the past two years, at least 19 homes worth close to $121 million have been purchased in the Bahamas by Sam Bankman-FTX, Fried’s his parents, and senior officials of the defunct cryptocurrency exchange, according to official property records.
The majority of FTX’s purchases were high-end beachfront properties, including seven condominiums in the pricey resort neighborhood of Albany that cost about $72 million. According to the documents, a unit of FTX purchased these houses to serve as “residence for key employees” inside the organization. Reuters was unable to identify the residents of the units.
Bankman-parents, Fried’s Stanford University law professors Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, are listed as signatories on the papers for another beachfront home in Old Fort Bay, a gated neighborhood that formerly housed a British colonial fort constructed in the 1700s to stave against pirates. One of the paperwork dated June 15 stated that the property is intended to be used as a “vacation residence.”
When questioned by Reuters about why the pair opted to purchase a holiday home in the Bahamas and how it was paid for, a representative for the academics merely indicated that Bankman and Fried had been attempting to return the property to FTX.
Three condos at One Cable Beach, a beachfront home in New Providence, are among other pricey real estate transactions. According to records, Nishad Singh, the former head of engineering at FTX, Gary Wang, an FTX co-founder, and Bankman-Fried purchased the condominiums for domestic use at a cost of between $950,000 and $2 million.
Two of FTX Property’s real estate holdings were designated for commercial use: a $8.55 million group of homes that functioned as the company’s headquarters, and a 4.95-acre coastal parcel that was also intended to be transformed into office space for the cryptocurrency exchange.
