FTX Founder Charged For $40-M Bribe Of Chinese Officials

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was charged with directing $40 million in bribes to one or more Chinese officials to unfreeze assets relating to his cryptocurrency business in a newly rewritten indictment unsealed, Larry Neumeister AND Jennifer Peltz reported for the Associated Press (AP).

Photo Insert: Part of the bribe payment of cryptocurrency, then worth about $40 million, was moved from Alameda’s main trading account to a private cryptocurrency wallet in November 2021.

The charge of conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act raises to 13 the number of charges Bankman-Fried faces after he was arrested in the Bahamas in December and brought to the United States soon afterward.

The indictment was returned on Monday.

After Bankman-Fried failed to unfreeze the China accounts through lawyers, he agreed to direct a multi-million dollar bribe to try to unfreeze the accounts.

Bankman-Fried and others opened new fraudulent accounts on the Chinese exchanges using the information of several individuals unaffiliated with FTX or Alameda to evade freeze orders and move cryptocurrency from frozen accounts to the fraudulent accounts.

Part of the bribe payment of cryptocurrency, then worth about $40 million, was moved from Alameda’s main trading account to a private cryptocurrency wallet in November 2021.

Thus, the frozen accounts were activated at about the same time. After Bankman-Fried received confirmation that the accounts were unfrozen, he authorized the transfer of additional tens of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency to complete the bribe, according to the indictment.

WEEKLY FEATURE : MVP Group Keeps Lights On During Pandemic