Alameda Research, the trading arm of Sam Bankman-Fried’s bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, is seeking to recoup approximately $446 million in loans from four crypto trading companies said Voyager Digital.
According to a filing in Delaware bankruptcy court on Monday, FTX – which filed on behalf of Alameda – said that before Voyager filed for bankruptcy in July, it issued loan to Alameda, which Alameda repaid earlier, filed for bankruptcy in November. Now, Alameda is trying to get that money back, possibly to repay some of FTX’s creditors.
FTX and Alameda offered to buy all of Voyager’s assets and liabilities Last July, it appeared that the money would be given to Voyager’s customers, but Voyager rejected the offer, calling it a “Request low-ball clothes like a white rescue.”
In September, FTX won the bid for Voyager’s post-bankruptcy assets of about $1.4 billion.
Two months later, FTX declared bankruptcy and Bankman-Fried resigned as CEO; since then has been charged in a multi-billion dollar fraud case, which included allegations that Alameda took money from FTX customers to pay for his risky bets. First Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison agreed in the fraud case in December and is said to be cooperating in the case against Bankman-Fried.
In a court filing last Monday, FTX Voyager is alleged to be part of the problem.
“Most of the loss in the (considered) attention to the alleged dishonesty of Alameda and its leader is now called the role played by Voyager and other ‘debt’ lenders. Alameda is funding and fueling that misconduct, either knowingly or unknowingly,” the filing said, adding that “Voyager’s business model is money laundering. Investors were asked to sell and invest their money with little or no risk in investment funds such as Alameda and Three Arrows Capital.
(Crypto hedge fund Three Arrows declared bankruptcy in July.)