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.
