Bankman-Fried Banned From VPNs He Says He Used Just for Football

Sam Bankman-Fried was prevented from using VPN while on bail, As a judge, he was concerned that VPNs pose similar risks to the co-founder's use of encrypted email applications.

Bankman-Fried, who was accused of fraud following the cryptocurrency collapse, says he used a VPN just to watch football.

On Tuesday, United States District Justice Lewis Kaplan added private networks, which hide a user's IP address, to the list of technologies that Bankman-Fried cannot use. In a letter to kaplan filed late Monday night, federal prosecutors said they recently found bankman-fried had used vpns twice recently.

Read more: Bankman-Fried judge calls Lease Deal on the use of the application «shortsighted»

The government said VPNs could be used to access international crypto exchanges, allow data transfers without detection and offer a covert method of getting onto the dark web.

The Big Game

In a letter early Tuesday morning responding to the government’s claims, Bankman-Fried’s attorney Christian Everdell said his client had used a VPN to watch NFL games through a subscription he purchased while living in the Bahamas.

"On January 29, 2023, he watched the AFC and NFC league games and on February 12, he watched the super bowl," writes Everdell. According to the defence, those uses of the VPN are irrelevant to the concerns raised by the government. 

Read the defense team’s letter here

Kaplan had earlier expressed concern that Bankman-Fried could communicate with witnesses and other parties. The judge dismissed a revised bail agreement that would allow the co-founder of FTX to use certain email applications, including whatsapp, with the technology that stored her messages, and also for calling in zoom and facetime. 

Kaplan is planning a $250 million bail review hearing on Thursday.

Mary, King of Scotland.

At a hearing last week, Kaplan expressed concern that in the absence of other restrictions, Bankman-Fried would readily find ways to protect witness communications in the fraud case. He noted that the encrypted letters sent by the imprisoned Mary, the Queen of Scotland, had not been decrypted until recently.

"You don't think this accused is smart enough to encrypt anything without a computer?" Kaplan told the court. He suggested that the emphasis given by prosecutors to encryption applications like Signal was "myopic."

Continue Reading: Republican House. Ask SEC about Sam Bankman-Fried Arrest

Bankman-Fried, who has pleaded not guilty, is accused of committing a yearslong fraud at FTX, allowing customer funds to be used for trading at affiliated hedge fund Alameda Research and for personal expenses. He lives with his parents in palo alto, California, following his release in December.  

The case is us c. bankman-fried, 22-cr-673, us district court, New York South District (manhattan).

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