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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Daily Newspaper published by GPPC Doha, Qatar.

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Sam Bankman-Fried
Bankman-Fried gets 25 years for FTX fraud

Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison by a judge yesterday for stealing $8bn from customers of the now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange he founded, the last step in the former billionaire wunderkind’s dramatic downfall.US District Judge Lewis Kaplan handed down the sentence at a Manhattan court hearing after rejecting Bankman-Fried’s claim that FTX customers did not actually lose money and finding that he lied during his trial testimony. A jury found Bankman-Fried, 32, guilty on November 2 on seven fraud and conspiracy counts stemming from FTX’s 2022 collapse in what prosecutors have called one of the biggest financial frauds in US history.Kaplan said Bankman-Fried has shown no remorse.“He knew it was wrong,” Kaplan said. “He knew it was criminal. He regrets that he made a very bad bet about the likelihood of getting caught. But he is not going to admit a thing, as is his right.”Bankman-Fried, wearing a beige short-sleeve jail T-shirt, acknowledged during 20 minutes of remarks to the judge that FTX customers had suffered and he offered an apology to his former FTX colleagues — but did not admit criminal wrongdoing.He has vowed to appeal his conviction and sentence.Bankman-Fried stood with his hands clasped before him as Kaplan read the sentence. He then spoke with his defence lawyer Marc Mukasey briefly before being led out of the courtroom by members of the US Marshals Service.The sentence marked the culmination of Bankman-Fried’s plunge from an ultra-wealthy entrepreneur and major political donor to the biggest trophy to date in a crackdown by US authorities on malfeasance in cryptocurrency markets.“There are serious consequences for defrauding customers and investors,” US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “Anyone who believes they can hide their financial crimes behind wealth and power, or behind a shiny new thing they claim no-one else is smart enough to understand, should think twice.”Kaplan found that FTX customers lost $8bn, FTX’s equity investors lost $1.7bn, and that lenders to the Alameda Research hedge fund Bankman-Fried founded lost $1.3bn. He imposed an $11bn forfeiture order and authorized the government to repay victims with seized assets.Federal prosecutors had sought a sentence of 40 to 50 years. Mukasey had argued for a sentence of less than 5-1/4 years.Addressing the judge, Bankman-Fried said, “Customers have been suffering ... I didn’t at all mean to minimise that. I also think that’s something that was missing from what I’ve said over the course of this process, and I’m sorry for that.”Referring to his FTX colleagues, Bankman-Fried added, “They put a lot of themselves into it, and I threw that all away. It haunts me every day.”Three former close associates testified as prosecution witnesses that Bankman-Fried had directed them to use FTX customer funds to plug losses at Alameda Research. All three have pleaded guilty to fraud.Kaplan said Bankman-Fried lied when testified that he did not know Alameda Research had spent customer deposits taken from FTX.Mukasey sought to distance Bankman-Fried from notorious fraudsters like Bernie Madoff, saying he was “not a ruthless financial serial killer” but rather an “awkward math nerd” who tried to get customers their money back after FTX’s collapse.“Sam Bankman-Fried doesn’t make decisions with malice in his heart,” Mukasey added. “He makes decisions with math in his head.”Bankman-Fried’s eyes turned red as he appeared to hold back tears while Mukasey spoke.His parents, Stanford University law professors Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, attended the sentencing. Bankman held a green umbrella as they exited the courthouse into a rainy New York afternoon, their arms around each other.“We are heartbroken and will continue to fight for our son,” they said in a statement.A Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, Bankman-Fried rode a boom in the values of bitcoin and other digital assets to a net worth of $26bn, according to Forbes magazine, before he turned 30.Bankman-Fried became known for his mop of unkempt curly hair and commitment to a movement called effective altruism, which encourages talented young people to focus on earning money and giving it away to worthy causes.He was one of the biggest contributors to Democratic candidates and causes before the 2022 US midterm elections. Kaplan pointed to trial evidence showing Bankman-Fried also donated to Republicans through “straw” donors to hide his involvement.The judge called Bankman-Fried’s efforts to present himself as a “good guy” an act, adding, “The goal was power and influence.”Bankman-Fried has been detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn since August 2023, when Kaplan revoked his bail after finding he likely tampered with witnesses at least twice. Kaplan said he would recommend Bankman-Fried be sent to a prison close to San Francisco.

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29 March 2024

Pope Francis washing the feet of an inmate during a private visit at the Rebibbia prison for women in Rome yesterday. (AFP)
Events
Pope washes feet of 12 women prisoners

Pope Francis, who often pleads for compassion to prisoners, washed the feet of 12 incarcerated women in Rome yesterday in a rite before Easter.The Argentinian Jesuit visited the Rebibbia women’s prison in the northeastern outskirts of the Italian capital, where he performed the same rite in 2015.Yesterday, however, was the first time the 87-year-old pontiff had dedicated his annual ritual solely to women.Seated in a wheelchair, the Pope washed the feet of each of the prisoners, some of them in tears, before drying them off with a towel and kissing them.“We all have small failures, big failures,” said the Pope in an impromptu homily during a mass held in the courtyard of the prison that holds some 370 women.“But the Lord is always waiting for us, with open arms, and he never tires of forgiving,” he added.The washing of feet is “a gesture that draws our attention to the vocation of service,” said Francis, who as a priest in Buenos Aires had already begun visiting prisoners.A few minutes earlier, the pontiff was all smiles as he shook hands with the inmates.Last month, the Pope caught a flu that caused him to cancel some public meetings. During his subsequent recovery, he has on several occasions asked others to read his speeches.Since becoming Pope in 2013, the head of the Catholic Church has often visited prisons and refugee centres, including last year when he visited a juvenile detention centre and washed the feet of 12 young men.


People gather near the building as firefighters and forensic expert inspect the site in Dhaka yesterday.
Events
Bangladesh building fire kills 46, injures dozens

A massive fire in Bangladesh that raged through a six-storey building home to restaurants where many families with children were dining has killed at least 46 people and injured dozens, the health minister said yesterday.Fire authorities said a gas leak or a stove could have caused Thursday’s blaze in the capital, which spread quickly after breaking out in a restaurant, and was only brought under control following two hours of effort by 13 units of firefighters.Hospitals were treating 22 people with burns, Health Minister Samanta Lal Sen told reporters.“All 22 people ... are in critical condition,” Sen, himself a well-known physician, said after a visit to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital. “We are trying our best to save their lives.”Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina expressed shock and sorrow at the incident, ordering swift treatment for the injured.She urged adherence to construction rules and regulations, including requirements for essential safety features such as fire exits and ventilation systems to prevent such tragedies in the future.One survivor, Mohamed Altaf, recounted his narrow escape from the blaze that killed two colleagues.“I went to the kitchen, broke a window and jumped to save myself,” he told reporters, adding that a cashier and server who urged people to leave during the first moments had died later.Firefighters used cranes to rescue people from the charred building, said fire officials, who were still working to clear debris and douse any remaining embers.Relatives gathered at the hospital early yesterday to receive the bodies of the dead, with some mourning outside the emergency department.“I could not save my daughter,” wailed Abdul Quddus, the father of Nimu, whose relatives said she was among a group of five cousins and friends who all died in the fire.


A screenshot taken on Monday shows a takedown notice that a group of global intelligence agencies issued to a darkweb site called Lockbit.
Events
Global operation smashes ‘most harmful cybercrime’ network

An international operation led by UK and US law enforcement has severely disrupted “the world’s most harmful cybercrime group”, the Russian-linked ransomware specialist LockBit, officials announced on Tuesday.LockBit and its affiliates have targeted governments, major companies, schools and hospitals, causing billions of dollars of damage and extracting tens of millions in ransoms from victims.Officials from Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA), working with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Europol and agencies from nine other countries in Operation Cronos, said in a news conference in London that it had infiltrated LockBit’s network and taken control of its services.“We have hacked the hackers, we have taken control of their infrastructure, seized their source code, and obtained keys that will help victims decrypt their systems,” NCA director-general Graeme Biggar told reporters.LockBit’s website – selling services that allow people to organise cyberattacks and hold data until a ransom is paid appears – was taken over on Monday evening.A message appeared on the site stating that it was “now under control of law enforcement”.“Together, we have arrested, indicted or sanctioned some of the perpetrators and we have gained unprecedented and comprehensive access to Lockbit’s systems,” Biggar said. “As of today, Lockbit is effectively redundant. Lockbit has been locked out”.A representative for Lockbit did not respond to messages from Reuters seeking comment.The US Justice Department (DOJ) said that the law enforcement agencies had seized control of “numerous public-facing websites used by LockBit to connect to the organisation’s infrastructure” and taken control of servers used by LockBit administrators.The NCA added that it had obtained more than 1,000 decryption keys and will be contacting UK-based victims in the coming days and weeks to offer support and help them recover encrypted data.Biggar said that the network had been behind 25% of all cyberattacks in the past year.LockBit has targeted more than 2,000 victims and received more than $120mn in ransom payments since it formed four years ago, according to the DOJ.In November last year, Lockbit published internal data from Boeing, one of the world’s largest defence and space contractors, and said that the US arm of China’s ICBC had paid a ransom following an attack that disrupted trades in the US Treasury market.In early 2023, Britain’s Royal Mail faced severe disruption after an attack by the group.In January 2023, US law enforcers shut down the Hive ransomware operation which extorted some $100mn from more than 1,500 victims worldwide.Since then, LockBit has been seen as the biggest current threat.Hive and LockBit are part of what cybersecurity experts call a “ransomware as a service” style, or RaaS – a business that leases its software and methods to others to use in extorting money.Ariel Ropek, director of cyber threat intelligence at cybersecurity firm Avertium, told AFP last year that this structure makes it possible for criminals with minimal computer fluency to get into ransomware by paying others for their expertise.On the so-called darkweb, providers of ransomware services pitch their products openly.At one end are the initial access brokers, who specialise in breaking into corporate or institutional computer systems.They then sell that access to the hacker, or ransomware operator.However, the operator depends on RaaS developers like Hive or LockBit, which have the programming skills to create the malware needed to carry out the operation.Typically, their programs – once inserted by the ransomware operator into a target’s IT systems – are manipulated to freeze, via encryption, the target’s files and data.RaaS developers offer a full service to the operators, for a large share of the ransom paid out, said Ropek.When the ransomware is planted and activated, the target receives a message telling them how much to pay to get their data unencrypted.That ransom can run from thousands to millions of dollars.On Tuesday the US unsealed an indictment against two Russian nationals, bringing to five the number of Russians it has charged in connection with LockBit.In a separate notice, the US Treasury Department said it is imposing sanctions on the pair, affiliates of LockBit, who “actively engaged” in ransomware attacks.Biggar said that a “large concentration” of the cyber criminals are in Russia and are Russian-speaking, but law enforcement agencies have not seen any direct support for LockBit from the Russian state.“There is clearly some tolerance of cyber criminality within Russia,” he added.

President Macky Sall
Events
Senegal president calls off February 25 vote

President Macky Sall has postponed Senegal’s planned February 25 presidential election, announcing in a televised address to the nation that he had cancelled the relevant electoral law due to electoral disputes he warned could fuel unrest.With little more than three weeks to go before the vote, the unprecedented step of delaying the poll, to an unspecified date, pitches Senegal into uncharted constitutional waters that some opposition and civil society groups warn could destabilise the country.In an address to the nation, Sall said he signed a decree abolishing a previous measure that set the date, because lawmakers were investigating two Constitutional Council judges whose integrity in the election process has been questioned.“I will begin an open national dialogue to bring together the conditions for a free, transparent and inclusive election,” Sall added, without giving a new date.“These troubled conditions could seriously undermine the credibility of the ballot by sowing the seeds of pre- and post-electoral disputes,” Sall said in his address.He did not set a new date for the vote, but said there would be a national dialogue to ensure the election would be free, fair and transparent.He said the postponement would not affect his decision not to run for a third term – an issue that has helped fuel recurrent and sometimes deadly protests in what is normally one of West Africa’s most stable democracies.The capital Dakar appeared calm after Sall’s announcement with no immediate sign of people taking to the streets in protest.What happens next is unclear. Senegal has never delayed a presidential vote.Its four largely peaceful transitions of power through the ballot box since independence from France in 1960 have built up its reputation for stability.Earlier yesterday the coalition of opposition candidate Khalifa Sall warned that delaying the vote would undermine the legitimacy of the election and amount to an “institutional coup d’etat”.The opposition Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS), whose candidate Karim Wade was among those excluded from running, had formally requested a postponement on Friday.The excluded candidates, who include opposition firebrand Ousmane Sonko, say the rules for candidacy were not applied fairly. The authorities deny this.There was no immediate response to Sall’s decision from Sonko’s now-dissolved PASTEF party, whose supporters have regularly taken to the streets in recent years to protest alleged attempts by the authorities to sideline the opposition. The presidency and government deny this.“Now that (the postponement) has been confirmed, this will likely relapse the country into a political uncertainty and revive civil unrest threats,” said West Africa political analyst Wendyam Herve Lankoande.The influential League of Imams and Preachers of Senegal also warned that postponing the vote would be “fraught with risks”.“As Senegal is stable in all respects and on track for elections, the wisest decision for the head of state would be to do everything possible to ensure that free and transparent elections are held,” it said.Senegalese voters are due to choose a successor to President Sall.For the first time in Senegal’s history, the incumbent is not on the ballot.His handpicked successor, Prime Minister Amadou Ba, is among 20 candidates cleared to run.

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