FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried charged with $40M bribe

 


FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried now faces a bribery charge in addition to the dozen other charges levied against him by the DOJ.

 Bankman-Fried is accused of paying at least $40M in cryptocurrency bribes to at least one Chinese government official to influence them to unfreeze some accounts owned by Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund, Alameda Research.

A new indictment containing the bribery charge was unsealed Tuesday.

  • Alameda Research was the target of a freezing order by the Chinese police in November 2021.
    • The frozen accounts are alleged to have contained about $1B worth of cryptocurrency.
  • Alameda Research used the unfrozen assets to continue to fund its loss-generating trades.
  • FTX and Alameda collapsed in November 2022 after concerns about their balance sheet triggered a sort of bank run on the crypto exchange.
  • Bankman-Fried faces a federal indictment and civil charges from both the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Earlier Tuesday, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers said they had reached an agreement on Monday with prosecutors for revised bail terms.

  • Under the new agreement, he would have use of a cell phone with no internet capability and a laptop computer with limited functions and monitoring software.

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