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A | FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried believed in utilitarianism and thought rules against lying or stealing inhibited his ability to maximize the greatest benefit for the most people, his former girlfriend and co-worker testified Wednesday at his federal fraud trial."He didn't think rules like 'don't lie' or 'don't steal' fit into that framework," Caroline Ellison, Bankman-Fried's on-again, off-again girlfriend, said.She said Bankman-Fried's belief caused her to accept behavior she recognized as wrong."I think it made me more willing to do things like lie or steal over time. When I started working at Alameda, I don't think I would have believed if you told me I would be sending false balance sheets or taking customer money," Ellison, who served as CEO of Alameda Research, said. "Over time it became something I was more comfortable with."Bankman-Fried faces seven counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering centered on his alleged use of customer deposits on the crypto trading platform FTX to cover losses at his hedge fund, Alameda Research, and to buy lavish real estate, among other personal expenses.On the witness stand for a second day Wednesday, Ellison walked the jury through Alameda balance sheets which, by October 2022, showed Bankman-Fried's private hedge fund owed FTX customers nearly $14 billion."We had a lot of risk on and we owed a lot of money to FTX customers," Ellison said. "We had no way to repay it."She said Bankman-Fried thought about trying to raise money from Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, or by selling shares in FTX, which would collapse in bankruptcy the following month, in November 2022."I was in a state of dread. I was thinking, worrying, imagining every day what would happen if people tried to withdraw too much money at one time," she said. "I was imagining all the FTX customers who we worked with who would get hurt by this."To shore up Alameda's precarious financial position Bankman-Fried told Ellison to repay Alameda's loans with money it borrowed surreptitiously from FTX customers, she testified Wednesday."He directed me to continue repaying Alameda's loans," Ellison said."How?" prosecutor Danielle Sassoon asked."By taking money from FTX customer funds," she replied.When Sassoon asked her if she knew it was wrong, Ellison replied, "Yeah I thought it was wrong," but continued to do it because "Sam told me to."By that point, Alameda had taken about $10 billion from FTX and Ellison said she worried its lender, Genesis, would find out."We had been borrowing increasing amounts of money from FTX customers and I didn't want Genesis to know that," Ellison said. "I didn't want Genesis or others to know that Alameda was borrowing a lot of money from FTX."Ellison said Bankman-Fried cautioned her against putting anything in writing, once telling her, "Anything we put on Slack should be something we're comfortable seeing in The New York Times."Ellison also described a "large bribe to Chinese government officials to get some of our trading accounts unlocked." Alameda had two trading accounts worth about a billion dollars on exchanges based in China, which were both frozen in 2021 as part of a Chinese government investigation into money laundering.It was a substantial amount of Alameda's trading capital at the time and Ellison accused Bankman-Fried of saying "that we should send the cryptocurrency transfers" equaling about $100 million.。 WASHINGTON -- The Treasury Department said Thursday that it has imposed its first set of sanctions on two companies that shipped Russian oil in violation of a multinational price cap.The United States, along with the European Union, countries in the Group of Seven and Australia, imposed a $60 a barrel limit last year on what Russia could charge for its oil. The cap was designed to deprive the Kremlin of revenue to fund its war in Ukraine, forcing the Russian government either to sell its oil at a discount or divert money for a costly alternative shipping network.The companies being penalized are based in the United Arab Emirates and Turkey, the department said in a statement.A ship owned by the Emirates-based company Lumber Marine carried oil priced above $75 a barrel from a Russian port. Separately, a vessel owned by Turkey-based Ice Pearl Navigation ferried oil from Russia priced at $80 a barrel. Both companies relied on U.S. service providers. As a result of the sanctions, the Biden administration is blocking the companies' ability to conduct business or access any property or financial interests in the U.S.A senior treasury official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity per department rules, said that the government has usually contacted a ship's flagging nation and insurer if there is even a suspicion of a violation, leading to the ship losing access to insurance or a country's registration.The official said that Russia has tried to build an alternative shipping network to avoid the cap, but that has proved to be expensive, with private analyses indicating that it has cost $35 per barrel of oil.The administration has argued that the cap has been successful, leading to a 45% drop in Russian oil tax revenue over the past year. The official said the focus of enforcing the cap will be on further increasing costs for Russia's oil industry so Moscow has less money available to support its military in Ukraine.The coalition enforcing the price cap also released a set of recommendations to improve compliance within the maritime oil industry. The guidance was aimed at countries as well as private companies. It recommends that all ships have legitimate insurance and rely on industry standard classifications, among other policies focused on stepped-up monitoring of the sector.。

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