Former FTX Chief Executive Sam Bankman-Fried may no more fight against extradition from Bahamas to the United States. The 30-year-old former cryptocurrency mogul will appear in a Bahamas court on Monday where he is expected to reverse his decision to contest extradition to the United States, where he faces fraud charges on at least a dozen counts, a person familiar with the matter was cited as saying by Reuters.
It was not immediately clear what prompted Bankman-Fried to change his mind and decide not to contest extradition.
Bankman-Fried was indicted in a United States federal court in New York on Tuesday. The court in Manhatten charged him of engaging in a scheme to defraud FTX customers by using billions of dollars in stolen deposits to pay for expenses and debts and to make investments for his crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research LLC.
Bankman-Fried’s decision to consent to extradition would pave the way for him to appear in U.S. court to face wire fraud, money laundering and campaign finance charges.
Where will Bankman-Fried be kept?
According to defence lawyer Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma, once Bankman-Fried arrives in the United States, he will be kept at the Metropolitan Detention Center in New York’s Brooklyn.
Prosecutors will likely argue that Bankman-Fried is a flight risk and should remain in custody because of the large sums of money involved in the case and the unclear location of those funds.
“The missing money gives prosecutors strong arguments that he is a flight risk,” said former federal prosecutor and white-collar defense attorney Michael Weinstein. “I expect that if a judge grants pretrial release, they would impose very restrictive and onerous conditions.”
Bankman-Fried has acknowledged “risk management failings” at FTX but has said he does not believe he has criminal liability.
Bankman-Fried amassed a fortune valued at over $20 billion as he rode a cryptocurrency boom to build FTX into one of the world’s largest exchanges. His arrest last Monday in the Bahamas, where he lives and where FTX is based, came just a month after the exchange collapsed amid a flurry of customer withdrawals.
FTX filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11, the same day Bankman-Fried stepped down as CEO.
(With inputs from agencies)
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