FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Should Give Up Fight Against…
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FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Should Give Up Fight Against…
Sam Bankman-Fried arrived at a courthouse in the Bahamas on Monday morning and is expected to tell a judge he will not be fighting extradition to the United States, where he faces multiple criminal and civil charges linked to the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
The decision comes just a week after Bankman-Fried’s lawyers initially said they planned to fight extradition. An extradition hearing was scheduled for February 8. His reversal could speed up the timeline for his shipment to the United States.
Bahamian authorities arrested Bankman-Fried last Monday at the request of the US government.
Sam Bankman-Fried, co-founder and CEO of FTX. (Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The former FTX CEO faces criminal charges in the United States, including wire fraud and money laundering, as well as civil lawsuits. The 30-year-old could potentially spend the rest of his life in prison.
Bankman-Fried’s fall from crypto evangelist to pariah happened with breathtaking speed. FTX filed for bankruptcy protection on November 11 when it ran out of money after the cryptocurrency equivalent of a bank run.
Prior to the bankruptcy, Bankman-Fried was seen by many in Washington and on Wall Street as a digital currency whiz, someone who could help bring them to the mainstream, in part by working with policymakers to bring more oversight and trust. to industry.
Samuel Bankman-Fried, center, is escorted out of the trial court building the day after his arrest in Nassau, Bahamas, Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2022. (AP)A fence topped with barbed wire surrounds the trial court building, where FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was scheduled to appear. (AP)
Bankman-Fried was worth tens of billions of dollars – at least on paper – and was able to lure celebrities like Tom Brady or former politicians like Tony Blair and Bill Clinton to his lectures at luxury hotels in the Bahamas.
A major Silicon Valley company, Sequoia Capital, has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in FTX.
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US prosecutors and financial regulators painted a very different picture from Bankman-Fried and FTX last week. An unsealed indictment on Tuesday alleging he played a central role in FTX’s rapid collapse and hid his problems from the public and investors.
The Securities and Exchange Commission said Bankman-Fried illegally used investors’ money to purchase real estate in his and his family’s name.
New FTX CEO John Ray III told a congressional committee on Tuesday that there was nothing fancy about what Bankman-Fried was up to.
“It’s just old-fashioned embezzlement, taking other people’s money and using it for your own purposes,” he said.
