John J Ray, the liquidator of Enron back in 2002, has just been appointed to liquidate Bahamas-based currency trading company FTX. The quantum of losses will probably end up similar to Enron, adjusting for inflation, although Ray said FTX is worse because he had never encountered "such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here."
Co-founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy only about a week ago and as every media report will quickly become out of date, Wikipedia is probably as good a source of updated information as any. FTX (company) - Wikipedia
What Leighton Associates is interested in is whether this failed company was used for a significant amount of money laundering. We are aware of two small companies in New Zealand that were almost certainly used for money laundering and their failure appears to have been a planned event.
One was a fast-food kiosk in a Christchurch mall, presumably sold in good faith to the new owners, under whose leadership it quickly failed. At least 174 creditors lost around $3.84 million, according to the liquidator's report. How can a fast-food kiosk lose $4M? Exactly. We found out about this through an otherwise mundane employment dispute over unpaid wages, publicised in a determination by the Employment Relations Authority.
The other was a trust company operated by a law firm and it was removed from the Companies Office register because its director(s) or nominated person repeatedly failed to file an annual return. In an informal liquidation of this type, the money that was in the company's trust account can be withdrawn in such a way that its source can be hidden under legal privilege, and as a bonus the cash-up can be hidden from Inland Revenue. To make the risk worthwhile, the sums involved - and the degree of dodginess - would most likely be significant.
As to whether FTX was a laundromat, we probably won't know for some time.