The founder of the bankruptcy cryptocurrency exchange platform must appear before a judge in the coming hours. Two other people have been charged.
MO12345lemonde with AFP
Here it is extradited. The founder and former boss of the Cryptomonnaie FTX Sam Bankman-Fried Cryptx exchange platform arrived in New York on Wednesday, December 21 in New York. He must appear before a judge in the coming hours, according to several American media.
“SBF”, its nickname, “will be led directly to the southern district of [the state of] New York”, jurisdiction which includes Manhattan, after his arrival, “and he will be presented to a judge as soon as possible” , had announced earlier the Federal Prosecutor of Manhattan, Damian Williams, window In a video posted on Twitter.
At the start of the day on Wednesday, Sam Bankman-Fried gave his agreement to be extradited to the United States during an audience in Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas. At the audience, he expressed his “desire to ensure that the customers concerned recover their money”, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The Federal Prosecutor of Manhattan also revealed on Wednesday that two key characters in the file had been charged. The latter pleaded guilty and collaborate with the government, which means that they could incriminate Sam Bankman-Fried.
This is Caroline Ellison, former owner of the company Alameda Research, and Gary Wang, co-founder of FTX, charged “in connection with their role in the fraud that contributed to the collapse of FTX”, said Damian Williams, without giving more precision.
Solicited by the France-Presse agency as for the charges retained, the office of the federal prosecutor of Manhattan did not follow up.
the prinicipal decideer
According to the Wall Street Journal, both were charged with fraud, while only Caroline Ellison was questioned for the association of criminals.
Alameda Research is the company used by Sam Bankman-Fried, according to the indictment, to make risky transactions with billions of dollars of funds deposited by customers on the FTX platform, without them were informed.
Arrested on December 12 in Nassau, Sam Bankman-Fried was already in detention in the Bahamas.
Since the bankruptcy of FTX, on November 11, Sam Bankman-Fried several times publicly asserted that he had not been at the Manettes of Alameda Research for several months, indirectly incriminating Caroline Ellison. An argument contested by the public prosecutor, which affirms that “SBF” has remained the main decision -maker within Alameda until FTX’s bankruptcy.
during the first audience in Manhattan, the New York magistrate in Charge of the file will read the charges against him and ask him if he wishes or not, plead guilty. She will then decide whether Sam Bankman-Fried must be released or not on bail.
If he is kept in detention, pending his trial, he should be sent to the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, criticized for his lack of staff and dubious management of the prisoners.
In addition to risk transactions via Alameda, Sam Bankman-Fried is also suspected of having invested part of this money in real estate in the Bahamas. He is also accused of having made donations to democratic policies – always from FTX customers – including Joe Biden during his presidential campaign.
Five of the eight charges held against him, each predict a maximum sentence of twenty years in prison. Whoever has long been seen as an iconoclastic genius of cryptocurrencies is therefore likely to spend the rest of his days in prison.
Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang were also assigned to civil justice by the two main American financial market regulatory authorities, the SEC and the CFTC. They undertook to collaborate with the SEC, and recognized the facts attributed to them by the CFTC, which should be worth, in both cases, a more lenient judgment. The CFTC evaluates at 8 billion dollars the total of FTX customer account funds.