Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of crypto company FTX, was found guilty on Thursday of stealing money from customers of his cryptocurrency trading platform, the verdict confirms one of the biggest financial frauds in history, writes Reuters.

A 12-person jury in Manhattan federal court found Bankman-Fried guilty on all seven counts. The verdict came after a month-long trial in which prosecutors alleged he stole $8 billion from users of the FTX platform out of sheer greed.

The verdict came shortly before the one-year anniversary of FTX’s bankruptcy, a collapse that shocked the crypto sector and left Bankman-Fried without his then-estimated $25 billion fortune.

Last December, Bankman-Fried was extradited from the Bahamas, where he was arrested, to the United States.

Jurors announced their verdict on Thursday after just four hours of deliberations.

Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to all counts, two of which were wire fraud and five counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Bankman-Fried’s accusation, a signal for the crypto sector

The verdict is another victory for the US Department of Justice and Damian Williams, the Manhattan attorney general who has made rooting out corruption in the financial markets one of his priorities.

“The crypto industry may be new, players like Sam Bankman-Fried may be new, but this type of fraud is as old as the world and we do not tolerate it,” Williams told reporters gathered outside the court.

Once a spoiled eccentric of the crypto world, Bankman-Fried now joins the likes of Bernie Madoff, mastermind of one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in history, and Jordan Belfort, the broker immortalized in the movie The Wolf of Wall Streetalso convicted in the USA for committing large-scale financial fraud.

Lewis Kaplan, the judge in the case, set a sentencing date for March 28 next year.

Bankman-Friend, a graduate of the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, could be sentenced to decades behind bars. Now he is 31 years old.

Mark Cohen, his attorney, said in a press release that he was “disappointed” but respected the jury’s decision.

“Mr. Bankman-Fried continues to maintain his innocence and will continue to vigorously defend the charges against him,” the lawyer said.

The founder of FTX simply stole the money of the platform’s customers

As court officers led Bankman-Fried out of the courtroom, he turned to his parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, both professors at Stanford University Law School.

In addition to sentencing in that case, Bankman-Fried is due to stand trial next March in a separate case in which prosecutors have charged him with bribery and conspiracy to commit bank fraud.

Last year, several crypto companies went bankrupt after the price of Bitcoin and other digital assets fell after a years-long “boom”.

US prosecutors argued during the trial of Bankman-Fried that he simply took money from users of the FTX platform to finance Alameda Research, his hedge fund specializing in cryptocurrency investments.

All the while, Bankman-Fried stated in advertising messages broadcast on social media platforms and on television that FTX emphasized the safety of its customers’ funds.

Alameda used the money received from FTX customers to pay off creditors and make loans to Bankman-Fried and other hedge fund managers, who then used the money to make risky investments in cryptocurrency markets.

Prosecutors also said they used $100 million of FTX’s money to finance the campaigns of politicians deemed influential to advance the interests of the cryptocurrency business. The largest of them aimed to keep the sector unregulated or to minimize regulation by the US authorities.

Bankman-Fried was considered a rising star of the Democratic Party during the heyday of FTX, the second largest cryptocurrency trading platform at the time.

During the trial, he testified on his own behalf, but avoided direct answers to prosecutors’ questions that could cast him in a negative light.

Bankman-Frieda’s ex-girlfriend testified against him

Instead, Bankman-Fried said she made mistakes while running FTX, but never stole clients’ money. He claimed that he thought FTX’s loans to Alameda were legitimate, and that he simply didn’t realize how much the debts had grown, shortly before both collapsed.

Prosecutors had a different opinion.

“He didn’t expect three of his loyal deputies to testify and tell you the truth: that he was the one who had the plan, the motivation and the greed to rob FTX’s customer deposits — billions and billions of dollars — to get himself money, power and influence. He thought the rules didn’t apply to him. He thought he could get away with it,” prosecutor Danielle Sassoon told jurors Thursday.

She cited former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison and two FTX executives, Gary Wang and Nishad Singh, who testified for the prosecution after taking plea deals in exchange for reduced sentences.

The three said in court that Bankman-Fried was the mastermind behind the fraud scheme and that he instructed them to siphon deposits from FTX to Alameda and lie to investors about the financial health of the two companies.

Caroline Allison was Bankman-Fried’s girlfriend at the time of the scam, an aspect that has been widely speculated in the US press. Before she struck a deal with prosecutors, she faced up to 110 years in prison for her role in the collapse of two companies, The Wall Street Journal reported.