Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, is said to have followed a report by the New York Times reported to have been arrested in the Bahamas on Monday. The media report is based on a statement from the government of the Bahamas. Earlier, the United States Attorney’s Office had filed criminal charges against Bankman-Fried.
“Sam Bankman-Fried’s arrest came after the United States officially announced that it had filed criminal charges against Bankman-Fried and will likely seek his extradition,” the New York Times quoted the statement as saying. The US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams, confirmed that the arrest was made at the request of the US government.
FTX was headquartered in the Bahamas
The Justice Department is investigating Bankman-Fried in connection with the sudden implosion of FTX, a $32 billion company that filed for bankruptcy Nov. 11. More than 100 FTX-affiliated companies filed for bankruptcy protection in the US on November 11th. The company and Bankman-Fried are under investigation in the United States and the Bahamas, where the company is headquartered, for a number of possible wrongdoings. One of the most important investigations concerns the question of whether customer funds were lent to the trading company Alameda Research, which he also founded.
In media interviews following FTX’s collapse, Bankman-Fried has acknowledged major management mistakes, but has also claimed he never attempted to commit fraud or break the law. In his remarks, which he was preparing for a hearing in the US House of Representatives that Bankman-Fried was due to appear on Tuesday, he gave a candid assessment of his position. “I want to start by formally stating under oath: I screwed up,” he said in the remarks that Bloomberg News present.