FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried expected to drop fight against extradition to U.S.
Nassau, Bahamas/NEW YORK –
Sam Bankman-Fried arrived at a courthouse within the Bahamas early Monday and is predicted to inform a decide he is not going to struggle extradition to the U.S., the place he faces a number of legal and civil prices associated to the collapse of cryptocurrency change FTX.
The determination comes only a week after Bankman-Fried’s legal professionals had initially stated that they deliberate to struggle extradition. An extradition listening to had been scheduled for Feb. 8. His turnabout might velocity up the timetable for him to be despatched to the U.S.
Bahamian authorities arrested Bankman-Fried final Monday on the request of the U.S. authorities. The former FTX CEO faces legal prices within the U.S., together with wire fraud and cash laundering, in addition to civil prices. The 30-year-old might probably spend the remainder of his life in jail.
Bankman-Fried arrived on the courthouse in a black van marked Corrections, which was escorted by a SWAT car and a police car. Police rapidly whisked him into an entrance in the back of the courthouse.
Earlier, a handful of people that stated they have been both crypto fans or FTX clients that misplaced cash got here to court docket to witness the proceedings. One man known as out “Sam’s a fraud,” as he entered the courthouse.
Bankman-Fried’s downfall, from crypto evangelist to pariah, occurred with beautiful velocity. FTX filed for chapter safety on Nov. 11 when it ran out of cash after the cryptocurrency equal of a financial institution run.
Before the chapter, Bankman-Fried was thought-about by many in Washington and on Wall Street as a wunderkind of digital currencies, somebody who might assist take them mainstream, partially by working with policymakers to deliver extra oversight and belief to the business.
Bankman-Fried had been value tens of billions of {dollars} — at the very least on paper — and was capable of entice celebrities like Tom Brady or former politicians like Tony Blair and Bill Clinton to his conferences at luxurious resorts within the Bahamas. One distinguished Silicon Valley agency, Sequoia Capital, invested tons of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in FTX.
U.S. prosecutors and monetary regulators painted a really totally different image of Bankman-Fried and FTX final week. An indictment unsealed Tuesday alleging he performed a central function within the fast collapse of FTX and hid its issues from the general public and traders. The Securities and Exchange Commission stated Bankman-Fried illegally used traders’ cash to purchase actual property on behalf of himself and his household.
The new CEO of FTX, John Ray III, informed a congressional committee on Tuesday that there was nothing refined about what Bankman-Fried was as much as.
“This is just old fashion embezzlement, taking money from others and using it for your own purposes,” he stated.
