FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (second left) is led away in handcuffs by Royal Bahamas Police Force officers in Nassau, Bahamas on December 13, 2022.
mario duncanson | AFP | fake images
FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried will no longer challenge extradition to the US, a sea change just days after he was sent to a Bahamas jail pending a hearing, he said a person familiar with the matter told CNBC.
The former crypto billionaire will appear in court in the Bahamas on Monday to formally waive his extradition rights, paving the way for federal authorities to secure his return to the US.
Extradition between the Bahamas and the US is codified by a 1991 treaty. In practice, the process takes months, if not years, to complete because defendants have numerous opportunities to appeal. Bankman-Fried’s legal team had initially said it planned to fight the extradition. The change of heart would significantly advance the schedule of the Bankman-Fried federal trial.
The 30-year-old MIT grad was originally scheduled for his next hearing in February 2023.
A representative for Bankman-Fried declined to comment.
Bankman-Fried was indicted in New York federal court Monday on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States and money laundering. If he is sentenced, he could face the rest of his life in prison. The former FTX chief executive also faces concurrent charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on similar allegations that he worked to defraud FTX clients of billions of dollars since 2019, the year the exchange was founded.
At the heart of Bankman-Fried’s empire was Alameda Research, a cryptocurrency hedge fund that federal regulators say used FTX client money to participate in transactions that lost billions of dollars.
FTX’s collapse was precipitated when CoinDesk reports revealed a highly concentrated position in self-issued FTT coins, which Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund Alameda Research used as collateral for billions in crypto loans. Binance, a rival exchange, announced that it would sell its stake in FTT, prompting a massive withdrawal of funds. The company froze assets and declared bankruptcy days later. The SEC and CFTC charges indicated that FTX had commingled client funds with Bankman-Fried’s crypto hedge fund Alameda Research, losing billions in client deposits along the way.
