Based on a sealed indictment, the Royal Bahamas Police arrested SBF at the request of the US government.
Sam Bankman-Fried was detained in the Bahamas at the request of the United States government, just a day before the disgraced former FTX CEO was scheduled to appear before Congress.
According to a Dec. 12 announcement from the Bahamas Attorney General (AG) and Minister of Legal Affairs, Ryan Pinder, Bankman-Fried was detained by the Royal Bahamas Police Force after a formal notice from the US government that it had brought criminal charges against him.
The New York Times reported on December 12 that the charges against Bankman-Fried include wire and securities fraud, conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, and money laundering. The US will likely request Bankman-extradition, Fried’s with Pinder stating that the Bahamas will “promptly” process any extradition request.
According to Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis, both nations have a “common interest in holding responsible those people affiliated with FTX who may have abused the public trust and breached the law.”
According to a tweet from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York on December 12, officials in the Bahamas detained Bankman-Fried based on a sealed indictment that the office planned to unseal “in the morning.”
On December 10, Bloomberg reported that New York prosecutors, FBI agents, and regulators met with FTX’s attorneys to discuss the documents that investigators seek to collect.
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) was “closely” investigating whether FTX fraudulently moved hundreds of millions of dollars around the time the business filed bankruptcy on November 11.
As Pinder stated on Nov. 27, Bahamian officials were conducting their own “active and continuing” investigation into FTX, which included the country’s Securities Commission, the Financial Intelligence Section, and the police’s financial crimes unit.
The arrest of Bankman-Fried comes just a day before he was scheduled to appear remotely before the House Committee on Financial Services in a hearing probing the collapse of the exchange.
