Sam Bankman Fried, the founder of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, was arrested on Monday in The Bahamas after being criminally charged by U.S. prosecutors.
The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), Damian Williams, confirmed Bankman’s arrest by Bahamian authorities on Twitter.
“Earlier this evening, Bahamian authorities arrested Samuel Bankman-Fried at the request of the U.S. Government, based on a sealed indictment filed by the SDNY. We expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time,” he mentions in a tweet.
The Office of the Attorney General & Ministry of Legal Affairs of The Bahamas said it would comply with any extradition request.
In a statement, the Attorney General of The Bahamas, Sen Ryan Pinder KC, says, “As a result of the notification received and the material provided therewith, it was deemed appropriate for the Attorney General to seek BF’s arrest and hold him in custody pursuant to our nation’s Extradition Act.”
On Sam Bankman Fried’s arrest, The Bahamas’ Prime Minister ,Philip Davis, says, “The Bahamas and the United States have a shared interest in holding accountable all individuals associated with FTX who may have betrayed the public trust and broken the law. While the United States is pursuing criminal charges against SBF individually, The Bahamas will continue its own regulatory and criminal investigations into the collapse of FTX, with the continued cooperation of its law enforcement and regulatory partners in the United States and elsewhere.”
The announcement comes a month after FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US. The collapse of FTX began when CoinDesk, a news site that specialises in bitcoin and digital currencies, revealed that FTX’s corporate sibling, Alameda Research, which had $14B in assets, was too heavily reliant on illiquid tokens, including FTX’s own FTT.
Consequently, Sam Bankman Fried stepped down as CEO following a massive liquidity crisis. In addition, the FTX CEO has been accused of accessing customer funds improperly for this trading firm Alameda Research.
He is set to testify before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday.
