Status: 13.12.2022 03:25 a.m
After the cryptocurrency platform FTX went bankrupt a month ago, its founder Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas. The arrest had been requested by US authorities.
The founder and former CEO of now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, has been arrested in the Bahamas. The Bahamas Attorney General’s office said Bankman-Fried was arrested Monday after US attorneys charged him with criminal charges. His extradition to the United States is awaited.
A spokesman for the US Attorney’s Office in Manhattan confirmed Bankman-Fried’s arrest. “Tonight, authorities in the Bahamas arrested Samuel Bankman-Fried, at the request of the US government, based on a sealed indictment from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York,” said US Attorney Damian Williams. He expects the indictment to be unsealed in the morning. Then there is more information.
arrest for financial crimes
Bahamas police said Bankman-Fried was arrested shortly after 6:00 p.m. Monday at his apartment complex in Albany, Nassau, on financial crimes against US law. There were no incidents. Sam Bankman-Fried will appear in Nassau Magistrates Court on Tuesday. Mark Cohen, an attorney for Bankman-Frieds, did not immediately respond to inquiries.
FTX filed for bankruptcy protection in the US on Nov. 11 after customers withdrew en masse in response to the secret move of $10 billion in deposits.
Bankman-Fried has denied any allegations of fraud. “I’ve never tried to commit fraud,” he said in a one-hour video interview at a Nov. 30 New York Times event. He doesn’t think he’s criminally liable.