Sam Bankman-Fried should be sent to prison for up to 50 years for “orchestrating one of the largest financial frauds in history”, US prosecutors told a judge ahead of the FTX founder’s sentencing this month.

In a submission on Friday, the government said the 32-year-old, who was found guilty on seven charges of fraud and money laundering late last year, “victimised tens of thousands of people” by stealing more than $8bn from customers and investors before his cryptocurrency exchange collapsed in November 2022.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan dismissed the claim from Bankman-Fried’s lawyers that their client should be shown leniency because customers are likely to recover their funds via the FTX bankruptcy proceedings. They pointed to “the suffocating sense of dread and despair that victims felt when they could not withdraw their money, their shame and embarrassment, and the resulting damage to lives and businesses, cannot be undone”.