Ah, the bahamas. What if you could hang out with celebrities, live in a penthouse above the crystal clear ocean with all of your best friends and have it be one hundred percent paid for f t x, vander sam bateman freed made that dream a reality? But u s prosecutor say he was hiding a dark secret as crypto kerr, the game mainstream popularity f t x was the poster child spending. Millions on pro sport sponsorships, an alias the liberty endorsements from the likes of Tom Brady, Larry David and even shark tanks. Kevin o leary with sir investing their own money in the market place. Many thought sand bank been freed was changing. The game isn't grace the pages of forms and vanity fair. Barely thirty, the young crypto billionaire became a powerful financial figure and was influencing the global economy, but in just one month his exchange would collapse and ass bf would find himself in hand passed as tens of thousands of investors would blame him, for their fortunes lost its one of them.

the dramatic falls from grace and represents one of the most spectacular failures of corporate control in american history. Here: exclusive tape of sand and his former girlfriend and business partner. Caroline, Listen later admitted something had gone very wrong inside their operation from blue organ wondering, can spell castor a new six part doc. You series about the meteoric rise and fall of empty acts and its founder SAM bank been freed, I'm about to play a clip from spell castor, the fall of sam bagman freed, while you're listening, follow style, castor wherever you get your pod cast paper, members, you can listen to episodes ad free on amazon, music download amazon music out today, the the bahamas resort resort is a gargantuan hotel on a gorgeous stretch of bahamas beachfront you enter by cross.

A roman style bridge over a landscape lake or every night. There's a glitzy fountain show, with pulsing lights and extremely loud news. It's like the bellagio on the caribbean taken klein, checked into the baha mar one afternoon in April of two twenty and twenty. So you arrive and there's a fish tank behind the check and as a big vertical tank filled with line fish to be more specific, there were signs for crypto bahamas everywhere. Early felt, like the whole island, was rising about this event taken was a twenty nine year old, crypto entrepreneur and influence sir. She done a lot of these. Crypto conferences before. But she didn't know much about this. One called crypto bahamas other than It was indeed only and should agree to speak here that had this dark, fantasy, disneyland, vegas vibe to it, and it really

cereal from the moment that I landed. She got her badge and was directed towards the vip reception. She walked out on the hotel on to find a small gathering of people surrounded by cabanas giant video screens, a local marching band played in the background. There was one big table. It was a long rectangular table set for about sixty people, so we kind of coalesced in the middle of that table and we all talks together. It was a three course meal, no caviar, but definitely nice food. The guests took turns introducing themselves. There were a lot of the usual suspects hedge fund, guy, venture capital, dude, crypto bro. Then a woman sat down at the table. She came with to guys. Eyes, and they were very nicely apologise for being late to the dinner taken. Recognize the woman right away. It was katy. Perry has an international pop superstar, katy perry, then the guy next to her spoke up. He said

I got famous from my role playing legless and lord of the rings, and it was actually orlando bloom, but for this crowd katy perry and orlando bloom weren't, the biggest celebrities there. The next morning, Michael Louis, the world renowned business journalist, sat onstage with an awkward looking thirty year old guy, with a map of curly hair wearing. Shorts and a baggy t shirt three years ago. Nobody knew who you were and now you're sitting on the cover of magazine and you're, a gazillion air and your guess. I see people were here to see the co founder and see a hefty ass one of the world's largest exchanges. He was a billion ere many times over a prolific political donor, a boundary breaking for anthropologist and he done at all in just a few years. These are world. This is your breaking land speed records

I dont think people really noticing what's happened, just how dramatic the revolutions, but This status upheaval is going going on in the financial world and you're right right in the middle of it sand bank freed freed I mean basically at anything in the way that server I approached it was like what should the product be? Like you know, what's louis has written some of the definitive business books of the past forty years, how money ball, liars poker and the big short he has spent a lifetime sorting businesses good guys from the charlatans and on stage at least he sounded impressed by what sam bank been freed had accomplished and samson just sit with Michael Louis. He was everywhere. He shared the stage with former president bill Clinton and former british prime minister tony Blair. He had an intimate hard to heart with Tom Brady and then another with a quarterbacks. Then why

if Giselle bundchen, the brazilian supermodel alleged stuff- and you know I mean ultimately, I this scale of of impact you can have on the world is just really really large and sound was beyond awkward his leg bounced wildly as he spoke his eyes, darted around the room, and you know that's. I think what what we set apart his audience, didn't seem to care. His awkwardness came off as a kind of charm like he was totally indifferent to what people thought about it and they laughed it up, especially when he talked about his driving motivation. Doing good sam had promised to give all of his wealth away. all twenty six billion dollars of it. The F tax nations recent announcement to give up to one billion dollars this year alone to high impact charities, show How sam is transforming corporate governance.

and becoming the modern day c e, o that the world needs today will discuss onstage with drizzle salmon belt, a new ad showing him standing with his arms crossed with a calmly, confident, even virtuous, expression on his face. He wore a hoodie and shorts, hoping the quote on his ad said: I'm an encore, dell, because I want to make the biggest global impact I for good watch out, he might have been taken klein had never seen anything like it. A lot of people were kind of in the crowd was captivated by sam's good intentions by the celebrities and world leaders he kept company with and the sheer scale of his promises. Missus ware, I realise that it was kind of the sam show, the sam show in the spring of twenty twenty two

tiptoe was booming and sam bank men freed was the star at one point f tax, sad. It was processing, on average, twelve and a half billion dollars worth of transactions each day, and it was all sam claimed. In the name of one day giving his fortune way to save the world, then not long after his star turn in the bahamas. The sand show began a very different season competitors. And regulators began to circle. Crypto prices were falling, behind the scenes. Sam's close,

said dicers or abandoning him. At the same time, my colleagues at Bloomberg started poking at the myth of sand bank and freed, and we publish stories about it. We weren't the only ones, but even we couldn't imagine the full scale of what was wrong inside SAM's empire by years and after tax was bankrupt, eight billion dollars were missing and sam was in handcuffs investors, prosecutors, lawyers and crypto fans were all left to figure out what was real and what was it? Hey, prime members, you can listen to episodes of spell castor, ad free on amazon, music, download the amazon music app today