Last year, the federal government secured a $627 million windfall by liquidating shares of artificial intelligence startup Anthropic that had been seized from associates of convicted crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried. New regulatory filings indicate that retaining the equity would have yielded a substantially larger return amid the company’s rapid valuation growth.
Anthropic’s S-1 prospectus filing revealed that the federal government sold 4,453,900 Series B shares in October 2025. The filing notes that the holdings “had been forfeited by former holders in legal proceedings to which we were not a party.” While the regulatory document does not name the individuals, the exact figure matches the combined $50 million investment made by former executives Nishad Singh and Caroline Ellison during Anthropic’s 2022 fundraising round, where they acquired the stock at $11.2261 per share.
The forfeited stake accounts for approximately a quarter of a percent of Anthropic today. With the company’s valuation reaching $1.5 trillion ahead of an expected November initial public offering, those shares would command an estimated total value of $3.94 billion—roughly six times the amount the federal government collected through the sale a year ago.
The government’s acquisition of the equity stemmed from the criminal prosecution of Bankman-Fried and his inner circle. Singh and Ellison both pleaded guilty to crimes tied to their work at Bankman-Fried’s defunct companies and subsequently testified against him at his Manhattan federal criminal trial. A jury convicted Bankman-Fried, and a federal judge sentenced him to 25 years in prison. The federal government assumed ownership of Singh’s and Ellison’s Anthropic shares by April 2025.
The US Marshals Service Complex Assets Unit, which typically handles private company shares acquired through criminal forfeiture, opted to sell the assets rather than retain the appreciating stock. Anthropic bought the shares back from the federal government in October 2025 at $140.9676 per share, mirroring the price set for its Series F-1 stock during a fundraising round the previous month.
According to the S-1 filing, Anthropic resold the shares to nine institutional investors at the same $627 million total price it paid the government, generating no profit from the transaction. The identities of the nine buyers remain undisclosed, and representatives for the US Marshals Service did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The path of these shares diverged from a separate block of $500 million in Series B shares owned directly by Bankman-Fried. Those assets became part of the FTX bankruptcy estate and were sold off in 2024 to dozens of buyers for $1.3 billion, with proceeds directed toward repaying defrauded customers and creditors.
During the sentencing hearings for Singh and Ellison, Justice Department prosecutors stated that funds generated from the sale of their Anthropic holdings would be allocated to compensate victims through a process known as remission. The federal government indicated it would either establish its own claims administration process or coordinate with the FTX bankruptcy proceedings to distribute the recovered capital.
A Justice Department spokesperson confirmed that the agency utilized the forfeiture proceeds in remission, in alignment with statements made by prosecutors during the sentencing hearings. The spokesperson emphasized that returning forfeited funds to victims through the asset forfeiture program whenever permitted by law remains a top priority for the department.
