The disgraced crypto-king faces life in prison if convicted on all counts
FTX co-founder Sam Bankman Fried has been arrested in the Bahamas less than 24-hours before he said he was going to testify before lawmakers on Capitol Hill remotely.
The disgraced crypto-king faces eight-counts including fraud and money laundering.
Bankman Fried, 30, is accused of diverting money from customers of the cryptocurrency trading platform to Alameda Research, his crypto hedge fund and then used that money for his own personal use.
Federal authorities in New York unsealed the indictment on Tuesday.
Gurbir Grewal from the Securities and Exchange Commission said Bankman Fried was, “Improperly diverting FTX customer funds to his crypto hedge fund Alameda research and his alleged in our complaint he then misused those funds to make undisclosed venture investments, lavish real estate purchases, and large political donations.”
Bankman Fried’s claims about FTX’s sophisticated risk controls and other customer protections were simply bogus. Similarly his representations to FTX investors and trading customers concerning Alameda were also part of that carefully crafted veneer and were similarly false and misleading.”
Meanwhile in Washington D.C. the current FTX CEO John Ray testified on the collapse of the cryptocurrency company before the House Financial Services Committee.
Bankman Fried was supposed to answer lawmakers’ questions about how FTX lost billions of dollars of customers’ money.
Ray became CEO after the company filed for bankruptcy last month.
“The FTX group’s collapse appears to have stemmed from absolute control in the hands of a small group of grossly inexperienced and unsophisticated individuals who failed to implement virtually any of the systems or controls that are necessary for a company entrusted with other people’s money or assets,” Ray said.
Federal officials say Bankman Fried was a flight-risk, so they needed to move quickly. If convicted on all 8-counts— Bankman Fried could spend up to life in prison.
