Nearly US$700 million seized from FTX founder Bankman-Fried

U.S. federal prosecutors have seized almost US$700 million in belongings from FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried in January, largely within the type of Robinhood inventory, in keeping with a Friday courtroom submitting.

Bankman-Fried, who has been accused of stealing billions of {dollars} from FTX clients to pay money owed incurred by his crypto-focused hedge fund, has pleaded not responsible to fraud fees. He is scheduled to face trial in October.

The Department of Justice revealed the seizure of Robinhood shares earlier this month, however it supplied a extra full record of seized belongings Friday, together with money held at numerous banks and belongings deposited at crypto alternate Binance.

The possession of the seized Robinhood shares, valued at about US$525 million, has been the topic of disputes between Bankman-Fried, FTX, and bankrupt crypto lender BlockFi.

The most up-to-date asset seizure reported by the DOJ came about on Thursday, when prosecutors seized US$94.5 million in money from an account at Silvergate Bank which was related to FTX Digital Markets, FTX’s subsidiary within the Bahamas. The DOJ seized greater than US$7 million from different Silvergate accounts related to Bankman-Fried and FTX.

The DOJ beforehand seized almost US$50 million from an FTX Digital Markets account at Moonstone Bank, a small financial institution in Washington state.

DOJ additionally stated that belongings in three Binance accounts related to Bankman-Fried have been topic to legal forfeiture, however didn’t present an estimate of the worth in these accounts.

(Reporting by Dietrich Knauth; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Daniel Wallis)