# Ryan Salame **Ryan Salame** was co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets, the Bahamas entity at the center of [[FTX]]'s offshore operations, and the **right-hand side of the exchange's two-party political machine**. While [[Sam Bankman-Fried]] publicly gave roughly $40 million to Democrats in the 2022 midterms, Salame gave **roughly $24 million to Republican candidates and committees** — making him one of the largest GOP donors of the cycle. That symmetry is the point. FTX was not buying a party. It was buying **both sides of crypto regulation** with the same stolen customer deposits, using executives as fronts so that neither donation stream traced back to a single source. See [[Crypto-Political Machine]]. Salame pleaded guilty in September 2023 to **conspiracy to make unlawful political contributions and defraud the FEC**, and to conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business. On **May 28, 2024** Judge Lewis Kaplan sentenced him to **90 months — seven and a half years** — a notably harsh term for a defendant who was not charged in the core fraud. He reported to prison in October 2024 and updated his LinkedIn job title to "inmate." ## The Bond entanglement Salame's partner (later wife) **[[Michelle Bond]]** ran in the 2022 Republican primary for New York's 1st Congressional District, losing to Nicholas LaLota. Prosecutors allege roughly **$400,000 in FTX money** was funneled into her campaign. Bond was indicted in **August 2024**; Salame subsequently sought to withdraw his guilty plea, claiming prosecutors had broken a promise not to charge her — a "girlfriend pact" theory the court did not accept. ## Cross-references - Employer and scandal: [[FTX]], [[FTX Collapse]] - Counterpart donor stream: [[Sam Bankman-Fried]], [[Nishad Singh]] - Partner and co-defendant-adjacent case: [[Michelle Bond]] - Mechanism: [[Crypto-Political Machine]], [[Elite Impunity]] - Chronology: [[Campaign Finance Timeline]], [[Sam Bankman-Fried Collapse Timeline]] > [!note] Stub > Expand: the full donation ledger by recipient, the forfeiture and restitution terms, the Massachusetts real-estate purchases, and which committees returned the money.