Bankman-Fried will agree to extradition to U.S.: reports

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried on Monday decided to agree to be extradited to the U.S. to face fraud charges, Reuters reported, citing his lawyers.

The report came several hours after one of Bankman-Fried’s lawyers told a judge at a hearing in the Bahamas that he wanted to see the indictment from the U.S. before consenting to be brought to the country. The New York Times subsequently reported that local defense lawyer Jerone Roberts said Bankman-Fried had agreed to the extradition voluntarily against “the strongest possible legal advice.” 

“We as counsel will prepare the necessary documents to trigger the court,” the Times cited Roberts as saying; the paper cited sources as saying that Bankman-Fried had been planning on contesting the extradition but changed his mind over the weekend. 

Reuters reported that Bankman-Fried departed the Monday hearing in Nassau in a black van marked “Corrections” and said he could be back in court later this week. 

U.S. authorities last week charged Bankman-Fried a month after the crypto exchange he founded filed for bankruptcy protection, with an eight-count indictment from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York court accusing him of committing or conspiring to commit fraud on FTX’s customers and lenders, money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and violate campaign finance disclosure laws. 

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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