0:00

Ah, the Bahamas. What if you could

0:02

hang out with celebrities, live in a penthouse

0:04

above the crystal clear ocean with all of your

0:06

best friends, and have it be 100% paid for? FTX

0:11

founder Sam Bankman-Fried made that

0:13

dream a reality, but US prosecutors

0:15

say he was hiding a dark secret. As

0:18

cryptocurrency gained mainstream popularity,

0:21

FTX was the poster child, spending

0:23

millions on pro-sport sponsorships

0:25

and A-list celebrity endorsements from the

0:27

likes of Tom Brady, Larry David,

0:30

and even Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary, with

0:32

some investing their own money in the marketplace.

0:35

Many thought Sam Bankman-Fried was changing

0:37

the game as he graced the pages

0:39

of Forbes and Vanity Fair. Barely 30,

0:41

the young crypto billionaire became

0:43

a powerful financial figure and was influencing

0:45

the global economy. But in

0:48

just one month, his exchange would collapse

0:50

and SBF would find himself in handcuffs

0:53

as tens of thousands of investors would

0:55

blame him for their fortunes lost. It's

0:58

one of the most dramatic

0:59

falls from grace and represents one

1:01

of the most spectacular failures of

1:03

corporate control in American history. Here,

1:05

exclusive tape of Sam and his

1:08

former girlfriend and business partner, Caroline

1:10

Ellison, who later admitted something

1:12

had gone very wrong inside their

1:14

operation. From Bloomberg and Wondery

1:16

comes Spellcaster, a new six-part

1:19

docuseries about the meteoric rise

1:21

and fall of FTX and its founder,

1:23

Sam Bankman-Fried. I'm about to play

1:25

a clip from Spellcaster,

1:26

the fall of Sam Bankman-Fried.

1:29

While you're listening, follow Spellcaster wherever

1:31

you get your podcasts. Hey, Prime members, you

1:34

can listen to episodes ad-free on Amazon

1:36

Music. Download the Amazon Music app

1:38

today.

1:48

The Baja Mara Resort is a gargantuan

1:51

hotel on a gorgeous stretch

1:53

of Bahamas beachfront. You

1:55

enter by crossing a Roman-style

1:57

bridge over a landscaped lake.

1:59

where every night there's a glitzy

2:02

fountain show with pulsing lights and

2:04

extremely loud music. It's

2:06

like the Bellagio on the Caribbean. Tagan

2:10

Klein checked into the Bahammar one

2:13

afternoon in April of 2022.

2:14

So you arrive

2:16

and there's a fish tank behind the check-in desk.

2:19

A big vertical tank filled with lionfish

2:21

to be more specific. There were signs

2:23

for crypto Bahamas everywhere. It really

2:26

felt like the whole island was kind of buzzing

2:28

about this event. Tagan was a 29-year-old

2:30

crypto entrepreneur and influencer. She'd

2:33

done a lot

2:34

of these crypto conferences before, but

2:36

she didn't know much about this one, called crypto

2:38

Bahamas. Other than that, it was invite

2:40

only and she'd agreed to speak at the event.

2:43

It almost had this dark fantasy Disneyland

2:45

Vegas vibe to it, and

2:48

it really felt surreal from the moment that I landed.

2:50

She got her badge and was directed

2:52

toward the VIP reception. She

2:55

walked out on the hotel lawn to find a small

2:57

gathering of people surrounded by cabanas

3:00

and giant video screens. A local

3:02

marching band played in the background. There

3:04

was one big table. It was a long rectangular

3:07

table set for about 60 people.

3:09

So we kind of coalesced in the middle of that table

3:11

and we all talked together. It was

3:13

a three-course meal, no caviar, but

3:16

definitely nice food. The guests

3:18

took turns introducing themselves. There

3:21

were a lot of the usual suspects. Hedge

3:23

fund guy, venture capital dude,

3:25

crypto bro. Then a woman

3:27

sat down at the table. She came with two

3:30

guys and they were very

3:32

nice. They apologized for being late to the dinner. Tagan

3:34

recognized the woman right away. It

3:37

was Katy Perry as an international

3:39

pop superstar, Katy Perry. Then

3:42

the guy next to her spoke up. He said, I got

3:44

famous from my role playing Legolas

3:47

in Lord of the Rings and it was actually Orlando

3:49

Bloom. But for this crowd, Katy

3:52

Perry and Orlando Bloom weren't

3:54

the biggest celebrities there.

3:55

The next morning,

3:58

Michael Lewis, the world. renowned business

4:00

journalist, sat on stage

4:03

with an awkward looking 30 year old guy

4:05

with a mop of curly hair, wearing

4:07

shorts and a baggy t-shirt. Three

4:10

years ago nobody knew who you were and

4:12

now you're sitting on the cover of magazines

4:15

and you're a gazillionaire and your business is- This

4:17

was who people

4:18

were here to see. The co-founder

4:20

and CEO of FTX,

4:23

one of the world's largest crypto exchanges.

4:26

He was a billionaire many times over,

4:29

a prolific political donor, a

4:32

boundary breaking philanthropist and

4:34

he'd done it all in just a few years.

4:36

These are world- you're

4:38

breaking land speed records and

4:41

I don't think people are really noticing what's

4:43

happened, just how dramatic the

4:45

revolution has become. There's a status

4:48

upheaval that's going on in the financial world and

4:50

you're sitting right in the middle of it.

4:51

Sam Bankman Freed.

4:54

Yeah, I mean basically and I think

4:57

the way that I approached it was like,

5:00

what should the product

5:02

be? Like, you know- Lewis has

5:04

written some of the definitive business books

5:07

of the past 40 years. Moneyball,

5:09

Liar's Poker and The Big Short.

5:12

He has spent a lifetime sorting

5:14

businesses good guys from the charlatans.

5:18

And on stage at least, he sounded impressed

5:20

by what Sam Bankman Freed had accomplished.

5:23

When Sam didn't just sit with Michael Lewis,

5:26

he was everywhere. He shared the

5:28

stage with former President Bill Clinton

5:31

and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

5:34

He had an intimate heart to heart with

5:36

Tom Brady. And then another

5:38

with the quarterback's then-wife, Giselle

5:41

Bunshin, the Brazilian supermodel.

5:43

Oh, let's just start. You

5:46

know, I mean, ultimately, the

5:48

scale of impact you can have on

5:50

the world is just really, really large.

5:54

Sam was beyond awkward. His leg

5:56

bounced wildly as he spoke. His

5:58

eyes darted around. around the room. And

6:02

that's, I think, what really sets it apart.

6:05

His audience didn't seem to care. His

6:08

awkwardness came off as a kind of charm.

6:10

Like he was totally indifferent to what

6:13

people thought about it. And they

6:15

lapped it up,

6:16

especially when he talked about his driving

6:19

motivation,

6:20

doing good. Sam

6:23

had promised to give all of his wealth away,

6:25

all $26 billion of it. The

6:28

FTX Foundation's recent announcement to give up

6:30

to $1 billion this

6:32

year alone to high-impact charities show

6:35

how Sam is transforming corporate governance

6:38

and becoming the modern-day CEO that

6:40

the world needs. Today we'll discuss

6:42

what he's doing. On stage with Giselle, Sam unveiled

6:45

a new ad showing him standing with

6:47

his arms crossed with a calmly

6:49

confident, even virtuous expression

6:52

on his

6:52

face. He wore a hoodie and

6:54

shorts. The quote on his ad

6:56

said, I'm in on crypto because

6:59

I want to make the biggest global impact

7:01

for good. There you are.

7:03

Whoo! Yeah. Oh. Watch

7:07

out, he might leave crypto star modeling career. Um.

7:12

Kagan Klein had never seen anything

7:14

like it. I think a lot of people were

7:17

kind of in awe. The crowd was captivated

7:20

by Sam's good intentions, by the celebrities

7:22

and world leaders he kept company with,

7:25

and the sheer scale of his promises.

7:28

This is where I realized that it

7:30

was kind of the Sam show. The

7:33

Sam show.

7:34

In the spring of 2022, crypto was booming and

7:38

Sam Bankman Freed was the star.

7:41

At one point, FTX said it was

7:43

processing on average $12.5 billion

7:45

worth of transactions each day.

7:50

And it was all Sam claimed in the name

7:52

of one day giving his fortune away

7:55

to save the world.

7:57

Then,

7:58

not long after his star turned into a star,

7:59

in the Bahamas, the Sam

8:02

Show began a very different

8:04

season. Competitors

8:06

and regulators began to circle. Crypto

8:09

prices were falling. Behind

8:11

the scenes, Sam's closest advisors

8:14

were abandoning him. At the same

8:17

time, my colleagues at Bloomberg started

8:19

poking at the myth of Sam Bankman

8:22

freed. And we published stories about

8:24

it. We weren't the only ones. But

8:26

even we couldn't imagine the full scale

8:29

of what was wrong

8:29

inside Sam's empire. By

8:33

year's end, FTX was bankrupt.

8:36

$8 billion were missing, and

8:38

Sam was in handcuffs. Investors,

8:41

prosecutors, lawyers, and crypto

8:44

fans were all left to figure

8:46

out what was real and what

8:48

wasn't.

8:56

Call

8:59

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