How Sam Bankman-Fried’s Possible 110 Year Sentence Stacks Up Against Other Ex-Billionaires And Billionaires Who’ve Served Time
Source: Forbes
At least 11 billionaires or former billionaires have spent time behind bars. Here is what they did and how long they were in the clink.
Former crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted Thursday on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy. The 31-year-old, who was once worth as much as $24 billion and ranked No. 41 among America’s richest, faces up to 110 years in prison and is expected to be sentenced on March 28th. After his crypto trading firm FTX filed for bankruptcy and shut down in November 2022, Forbes reduced our estimate of Bankman-Fried’s fortune to nothing.
The fallen titan of crypto might be in prison longer than any billionaire has been before, given his age and possible sentence, but he certainly wouldn't be the first to be locked up. At least 11 billionaires or former billionaires have been to the big house, with three of them still behind bars and another under home confinement. White collar crime has been the weapon of choice for most of these unlawful elites, with them doing time for crimes ranging from orchestrating sweeping cases of fraud to bribery. One exception: the infamous Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin Guzman Loera, better known as El Chapo, who Forbes called a billionaire from 2009 through 2012 based on his leadership of the Sinaloa cartel, which was allegedly responsible for 25% of all drugs smuggled from Mexico into the U.S. He is serving a life sentence for narcotics trafficking and money laundering. Of the 11 below, seven are no longer members of the three-comma-club, many as a result of their crimes.
All net worths are as of Friday November 3, 2023.
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