I suspect most people aren’t really up for life on the run.

Versus decades of prison?

Is there not a house next to Edward Snowden?

Why stay?

He may be safer inside than out in countries without extradition treaties. He burnt a lot of money that wasn't his to burn.

That makes a lot of sense.

Extradition treaties aren’t the only thing to watch out for. Plenty of countries without them will happily fall over and hand someone wanted over.

Extradition treaty mainly just lets some foreign country start a process in local courts to hand someone over.

You need to butter up a place with adversarial relations.

Or go somewhere with ironclad constitutional protections against extradition. And even then, e.g. France only has those for its own citizens and may still prosecute you locally for your crimes abroad.

Why would they need go to a country subject to treaties. Unrecognized territories like transnistria (weev!),rojava,Somaliland,Ambazonia, western Sahara, Palestine (before invasion), fractions of Myanmar, idlib, rebel held congo fractions, etc. Basically no diplomatic relations and they will likely not eject someone seen locally as supporting their cause.

In any unrecognized territory, you risk becoming a pawn in exchange for a prisoner release. And pray that the unrecognized territory continues to exist as is.

There's no riskless path remaining after you've defrauded billions of dollars. Iirc the white girl who bombed the subway in london is thought to be still hiding in such a territory like two decades later.

He doesn't speak the language, had a highly recognizable face and is perceived to have money. Sounds like a recipe for a bad time in the rougher places of the world.

Not sure I'd want to live in Ambazonia but they speak English and would likely not have many that recognize his face. It also would have been easily accessible by yacht transatlantic from the Bahamas into a difficult to patrol estuary. But this is all pure fantasy, I understand why he didn't do that.

I’m not sure Russia there’s much protection in Russia if you don’t serve a purpose…

The right place to go in this case is probably the sort of place that will take your money and not extradite you. I heard the United Arab Emirates helps. Maybe Hong-Kong?

Yeah I wonder what a good place would be. If you’re known I gotta think there aren’t many places.

In his case, Israel would have been the best bet.

In most cases this is true, Israel rarely extradites jews and generally the US doesn't try too hard in forcing exceptions (like tying aid to extradition of accused), but this was way too high profile, and SBFs politics in general don't align with Israel's, so I could see Israel not working out for him.

Russia has a place for people who leak embarrassing secrets of the US. A thief like SBF has no value to them.

Oh they maybe are worth exactly the amount they bring… and someone will want it.

Mostly hubris. "I did nothing wrong, I have the best lawyers, I will beat the charges."

He also did a media tour after things blew up instead of just shutting up, which from what I gathered isn't the best idea for staying out of jail. Real overconfidence in his charisma?

The fact that he did this instead of executing a planned escape and going to hangout with Ruja Ignatova is the main reason for me to think he believed his own shit.

Either he believed his own shit or he was certain that he was smarter than everyone else.

I suspect the latter. I suspect even worse -- that he believes not only in his own genius, but that everyone else is actively stupid.

Did media tours while out on bail.

Leaked his ex-gf's private diaries in an attempt to intimidate her.

Decided to testify at his own trial.

I'm almost certain that he thought he would give a grand speech and all the jurors would instantly take his side, just like he had experienced with VCs, journalists, employees and other sycophants for the past decade.

Hubris, thy name is psyche.

He ran out of cash?

Remember he tried that when he was in the Bahamas. But he ran out of money and the Bahamians turned him over.

Yeah I remember one of Sam's lawyers insisted he stay in the Bahamas and fight extradition if he was to have any chance of staying out of jail and the other lawyer said he should do the opposite and accept extradition.

Given how harsh the US is on financial crimes, I always thought the former opinion was smarter. Nick Leeson only got sentenced to 6 1/2 years in Singapore (and served 4). Or, alternatively, most stats show higher levels of corruption he could've finessed in his favor in the Bahamas.

As soon as he arrived on US soil it was over for him IMO.

Why even follow him, I’m sure hitmen are pretty cheap in Venezuela. I guess security guards are too.