- Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested after being charged in New York.
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| The founder of the FTX cryptocurrency platform, Sam Bankman-Fried. |
The founder of the cryptocurrency platform FTX was arrested in the Bahamas at the request of the United States
The founder of the ill-fated cryptocurrency platform FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, was arrested this Monday in the Bahamas after being charged by the attorney for the southern district of New York, Damian Williams.
In a tweet, Williams reported that the Bahamian authorities had arrested Bankman-Fried at the request of the US government "based on a secret indictment" presented by the prosecution, details of which will be released shortly.
In a statement, published by the media, the Prime Minister of the Bahamas, Philip Davis, said that his country and the United States "have shared an interest in holding accountable all individuals associated with FTX who may have betrayed the public trust and infringed the law".
Bankman-Fried was scheduled to testify by video link before a US House committee on Tuesday.
FTX filed for bankruptcy on November 11 and at the end of that month, the company's new managers appeared for the first time before the Delaware state bankruptcy court (USA) to begin the restructuring process.
Lawyers for the new board and its current head, John Ray, argue that a "substantial amount" of the company's assets may have been stolen or are missing.
The new managers have also denounced that the company had a "total absence of corporate controls" and a lack of "reliable financial information".
The platform, which came to be valued at 32,000 million dollars, could have more than a million creditors around the world. So far, the company has admitted that it owes more than $3 billion to its top 50 creditors.
However, Bankman-Fried blames the bankruptcy in part on the massive sale of cryptocurrencies that occurred at the beginning of the year. For the founder of the company, that sale halved FTX's guarantee, of about 30,000 million dollars.
At that point, according to Bankman-Fried, the sale of cryptocurrencies continued, combined with a credit crunch and a "flight of the bank," which reduced the collateral to $9 billion before FTX filed for bankruptcy.
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