On Dec. 22, 2022, the Office of The Attorney General — Bahamas, released the statement, “Attorney General Sen. Ryan Pinder KC on The Extradition of Sam Bankman-Fried to the United States.”
The Extradition of SBF
According to the statement, “The Office of the Attorney General of The Bahamas announced the extradition to the United States of Sam Bankman-Fried (“SBF”), the former CEO of FTX. SBF will depart from The Bahamas for the United States tonight.”
It must be noted that “The Royal Bahamas Police Force arrested SBF, a U.S. citizen, on Dec. 12, 2022 following notification in the form of a diplomatic note from the U.S. that it had filed criminal charges against him.”
The U.S. requested that “a provisional arrest warrant be issued for SBF in anticipation of his extradition pursuant to an extradition Treaty between the two nations.” However, after the arrest, SBF subsequently waived his right to challenge his extradition to the U.S.
The Bahamas determined that “the provisional arrest, and subsequent written consent by SBF to be extradited without formal extradition proceedings satisfies the requirements of the Treaty and Bahamas’s Extradition Act.”
As per the Los Angeles Times report, the “reporters on the scene witnessed SBF leaving a Magistrate Court in Nassau in a dark SUV earlier Wednesday. The vehicle was later seen arriving at a private airfield by Nassau’s airport, from which he was expected to be flown to the United States. He was due to land in New York and will likely appear in front of a U.S. judge Thursday.”
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said “SBF illegally used investors’ money to buy real estate on behalf of himself and his family.” And SBF could potentially spend the rest of his life in jail.
The former FTX CEO was denied bail Friday after a Bahamian judge ruled that he posed a flight risk. He had been “held in the Bahamas’ Fox Hill prison, which has been cited by human rights activists as having poor sanitation and as being infested with rats and insects.”
When he is back in the U.S. SBF’s attorney will be able to request that he be released on bail.
On the other hand, the two associates of SBF, Carolyn Ellison, the former chief executive of Alameda Research, and Gary Wang, who co-founded FTX, have pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, as U.S. Atty. Damian Williams said Wednesday night.
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Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2022/12/22/the-bahamian-authorities-announced-sbfs-extradition-to-the-u-s/