Former FTX CEO Bankman-Fried arrested in Bahamas, US to unveil charges

Sam Bankman-Fried, who founded and led FTX until a liquidity crunch forced the cryptocurrency exchange to declare bankruptcy last month, was arrested on Monday in the Bahamas after being criminally charged by US prosecutors.

It marks a stunning fall from grace for the 30-year-old entrepreneur who rode a cryptocurrency boom to create one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges and a net worth that Forbes pegged a year ago at US$26.5 billion (about RM117.3 billion).

The exchange, launched in 2019 and based in the Bahamas, filed for bankruptcy Nov 11 after it struggled to raise money to stave off collapse as traders rushed to withdraw US$6 billion from the platform in just 72 hours.

The attorney-general's office for The Bahamas said it proceeded with the arrest after receiving formal confirmation of charges against Bankman-Fried, adding it expects he will be extradited to the US.

A statement from the Bahamas police said Bankman-Fried had been arrested shortly after 6pm Monday (2300 GMT) at his apartment complex, located in Albany, Nassau, in the Bahamas.

"He was arrested reference to various financial offences against laws of the US, which are also offences against laws of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas," the statement said, adding he was taken into custody without incident and will appear in Nassau's Magistrate Court on Tuesday.

A spokesman for the US attorney's office in Manhattan confirmed Bankman-Fried had been arrested in the Bahamas but declined to comment on the charges.

“Earlier this evening, Bahamian authorities arrested Samuel Bankman-Fried at the request of the US government, based on a sealed indictment filed by the US attorney’s office for the southern district of New York," US prosecutor Damian Williams said in a statement. "We expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time."

Mark Cohen, a lawyer for Bankman-Fried, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bankman-Fried's indictment by US authorities comes as the Department of Justice is considering charges against a far bigger player in the crypto world, industry-leading exchange Binance.

Reuters reported Monday that some Justice Department prosecutors believe they have gathered sufficient evidence in their long-running investigation of Binance to charge the company and some top executives. A Binance spokesman told Reuters in relation to the story: "We don't have any insight into the inner workings of the US Justice Department, nor would it be appropriate for us to comment if we did."

Binance is under investigation for possible money-laundering and sanctions violations, Reuters has reported. Others in the department have argued for taking time to review more evidence, four people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The arrest also came a day ahead of Bankman-Fried's scheduled appearance before US lawmakers on Tuesday, where he was planning to give testimony via a video link.

The US House Financial Services Committee was scheduled to hear from Bankman-Fried and current FTX CEO John Ray during the first in a series of hearings to examine the collapse of FTX beginning at 10am ET (1500 GMT).

Investigations

FTX's liquidity crunch came after Bankman-Fried secretly moved US$10 billion of FTX customer funds to his proprietary trading firm, Alameda Research, Reuters reported, citing two people familiar with the matter. At least US$1 billion in customer funds had vanished, the people said.

Bankman-Fried told Reuters the company did not "secretly transfer" but rather misread its "confusing internal labeling." Asked about the missing funds, he responded: "???"

In a series of interviews and public appearances in late November and December, Bankman-Fried acknowledged risk management failures but sought to distance himself from accusations of fraud, saying he never knowingly commingled customer funds on FTX with funds at Alameda.

"I didn't ever try to commit fraud," Bankman-Fried said in a Nov 30 interview at the New York Times' Dealbook Summit, adding he doesn't personally think he has any criminal liability.

Bankman-Fried resigned as FTX's CEO the same day as the bankruptcy filing.

The US attorney's office in Manhattan, led by veteran securities fraud prosecutor Williams, in mid-November began investigating how FTX handled customer funds, a source with knowledge of the probe told Reuters.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission also opened probes.

US crypto investors also sued Bankman-Fried, alleging he and a slew of celebrities who promoted FTX engaged in deceptive practices, leaving the investors with US$11 billion in damages.

FTX's demise marked the latest turmoil for the cryptocurrency industry this year. The overall crypto market has slumped amid a string of meltdowns that have taken down other key players including Voyager Digital and Celsius Network.