Sam Bankman-Fried, the creator of FTX, has been detained and will be deported to the US.
SBF was detained by Royal Bahamas police at the request of the American government in accordance with a sealed indictment.
Just one day before the disgraced former CEO of FTX was scheduled to testify before Congress, Sam Bankman-Fried was taken into custody by officials in the Bahamas at the request of the United States government.
According to a Dec. 12 announcement from the Bahamas Attorney General and
Minister of Legal Affairs, Ryan Pinder, Bankman-Fried was detained by the Royal Bahamas Police Force due to a formal notification from the US government that it has brought criminal charges against him.
The New York Times revealed on December 12 that allegations against Bankman-Fried include money laundering, conspiracy to commit wire and financial crimes, and wire and securities fraud.
The Bahamas would “promptly” handle any extradition request, according to Pinder, who anticipates that the United States will ask for Bankman-extradition. Fried’s
The statement from Philip Davis, the prime minister of the Bahamas, claimed that both nations had “a shared interest in holding accountable all people affiliated with FTX who may have breached the public trust and broken the law.
Using a sealed indictment it filed and intends to unseal “in the morning,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York tweeted on December 12 that authorities in the Bahamas had arrested Bankman-Fried.
According to a Dec. 10 Bloomberg article, prosecutors from New York, FBI agents, and regulators met with FTX’s attorneys to go over the paperwork that investigators are looking for.
When FTX filed for bankruptcy on November 11, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) was “intimately” scrutinising whether the corporation had fraudulently transferred hundreds of millions at that time.
According to Pinder’s announcement on November 27 that the Securities Commission, Financial Intelligence Unit, and Police’s Financial Crimes Unit were all involved, Bahamian officials were similarly conducting their own “active and ongoing” investigation into FTX.
A day before he was scheduled to appear remotely to testify before the House Committee on Financial Services in a hearing looking into the collapse of the exchange, Bankman-Fried was arrested.