DOJ's New Indictment Alleges That Bankman-Fried Paid Over $40 Million In Bribes To At Least One Chinese Official
FTX co-founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, is alleged to have paid tens of millions of dollars in bribes to at least one Chinese government official, according to federal prosecutors.
Because Bitcoin
March 28, 2023
Reuters reported that according to a new indictment, Sam Bankman-Fried, the co-founder of FTX, allegedly paid millions of dollars in bribes to at least one Chinese government official. The indictment also claims that Chinese police froze accounts belonging to Bankman-Fried's hedge fund, Alameda Research, in November 2021.
Bankman-Fried and others purportedly directed the transfer of over $40 million in cryptocurrency to benefit Chinese officials and influence them to unfreeze the accounts containing approximately $1 billion worth of cryptocurrency. Despite attempting various legal and personal methods to unlock the accounts, Bankman-Fried allegedly agreed to and instructed a multi-million dollar bribe to be paid.
CNBC further reported that Bankman-Fried's hedge fund allegedly used the unfrozen assets to fund Alameda's loss-generating trades, which the government claims defrauded customers and investors for another year. FTX and Alameda faced a bank run in November 2022 after concerns about their balance sheet. Bankman-Fried is now facing a federal indictment and civil charges from the SEC and CFTC.
The charges suggest that the federal government has acquired new evidence about Bankman-Fried's international transactions. The charges were filed one day after U.S. regulators accused Binance, a crypto exchange, of facilitating terrorist financing and violating U.S. derivatives law. Bankman-Fried is presently under house arrest at his parents' residence in Palo Alto, California, on a $250 million bond until his trial on October 2nd.