Sam Bankman-Fried was detained in The Bahamas, according to a statement from the Office of the Attorney General & Ministry of Legal Affairs that was distributed by local press.
The arrest followed receipt of formal notification from the U.S. that it has filed criminal charges against Bankman-Fried and is likely to request his extradition.
“The Bahamas and the United States have a shared interest in holding accountable all individuals associated with FTX who may have betrayed the public trust and broken the law,” Prime Minister Philip Davis said in the statement. “While the United States is pursuing criminal charges against SBF individually, The Bahamas will continue its own regulatory and criminal investigations into the collapse of FTX.”
The news was confirmed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
“Earlier this evening, Bahamian authorities arrested Samuel Bankman-Fried at the request of the U.S. Government, based on a sealed indictment filed by the SDNY. We expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time,” the office said on Twitter.
Bankman-Fried had been expected to testify tomorrow at congressional hearing.
Disclaimer: Beginning in 2021, Michael McCaffrey, the former CEO and majority owner of The Block, took a series of loans from founder and former FTX and Alameda CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. McCaffrey resigned from the company in December 2022 after failing to disclose those transactions.
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Source: https://www.theblock.co/post/186393/sam-bankman-fried-arrested-in-the-bahamas?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss