▲ FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried interviewing ABC News in the Bahamas


Former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, a virtual currency exchange facing a collapse, is consistent with an excuse, saying, 'It was not an intentional fraud'.



It is a claim that we did not know what happened to the company properly, but criticism is coming out that it is hard to believe.



In an interview with the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) from his home in Albany, Bahamas, Bankman-Fried said only that he was "inexplicable" about how billions of dollars of FTX customer money were drained to affiliate Alameda Research. This newspaper was delivered on the 4th.



According to the WSJ, since FTX did not have its own bank account in its inception, some FTX customers transferred this money into an Alameda-controlled bank account with the intention of depositing it into their own FTX account.



In this way, the total amount of money deposited into Alameda accounts by FTX customers is over $5 billion (approximately KRW 6.5 trillion).



"The money was sent to Alameda, and I can only speculate as to what happened after that," said Bankman-Freed.



He added, "Dollars are interchangeable. There's nothing like a dollar bill that you can track from start to finish."



FTX, which filed for bankruptcy protection in a US court last month, is suspected of lending customers money to Alameda, the epicenter of insolvency, without permission.



Billions of dollars of lost funds are one of the key issues in bankruptcy protection proceedings.



Bankman-Fried said he resigned from Alameda management and did not know much about the company's internal affairs, but the WSJ pointed out that he is the largest shareholder with 90% of Alameda.



The WSJ also pointed out that according to Bankman-Fried's interview, FTX customer funds flowing to Alameda may have been duplicated on the balance sheets of FTX and Alameda.



Bankman-Fried also excused himself for being busy, saying that due to an internal system glitch, he was unable to determine the size of the Alameda deal on FTX.



"I just didn't have enough head rotation to figure out everything that's going on in Alameda," he said.



In a recent interview with the New York Times (NYT) and several media outlets, Bankman-Fried denied allegations that he had committed fraud or knowingly misappropriated customer funds, the WSJ said.



Bankman-Fried, who lives in an upscale residential complex in the Bahamas, says he has locked himself away from the paparazzi. "I rarely leave my apartment. Neither do my close friends and co-workers, and they don't seem to want to talk to me right now," he said.



Critics have cast doubt on the claim that someone as intelligent as Bankman-Fried accidentally lost billions of dollars, arguing that he was deliberately stealing customer money.



However, Bankman-Fried said, "I'm asking myself how I made this mistake. If anyone else did, I think I would have laughed at them."



(Photo = AP/ABC News, Yonhap News)