FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has gone from awkwardly hanging out with Tom Brady to being detained by Bahamian authorities.
U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said in a statement that Bankman-Fried was arrested Monday evening by authorities in the Bahamas at the request of the U.S. government. Williams didn’t lay out the charges Bankman-Fried faces.
“We expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time,” Williams said.
The New York Times reported that Bankman-Fried faces wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy and money laundering charges.
Bahamas Attorney General Ryan Pinder said in a statement that “ it was deemed appropriate” to arrest Bankman-Fried and Bahamian authorities will hold him in custody pending the extradition process.
“The Bahamas and the United States have a shared interest in holding accountable all individuals associated with FTX who may have betrayed the public trust and broken the law,” Pinder said. “While the United States is pursuing criminal charges against SBF individually, The Bahamas will continue its own regulatory and criminal investigations into the collapse of FTX, with the continued cooperation of its law enforcement and regulatory partners in the United States and elsewhere.”
Once the U.S. makes a formal extradition request, Pinder said his nation “intends to process it promptly, pursuant to Bahamian law and its treaty obligations with the United States.”
FTX halted trading last month, and days later, FTX and its affiliated companies filed for bankruptcy protection.
Bankman-Fried was slated to appear before the House Committee on Financial Services on Tuesday for a hearing on the crypto exchange’s collapse.
