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Sam Bankman-Fried Arrested In the Bahamas, Celebrity Ambassadors Not Charged

Sam Bankman-Fried Arrested In the Bahamas, Celebrity Ambassadors Not Charged

Bahamian and United States authorities have cooperated to arrest FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried in the island nation.

Credit: Craig Barritt/Getty Images

The New York Times reports that the former cryptocurrency wunderkind, 30, is facing multiple charges, including wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy, and money laundering. 

Bankman-Fried is the only person charged in the indictment. Per a Times source, he was cooperative during the arrest and was held overnight in a cell at a police station. He is scheduled to appear today, Tuesday, December 13, in Magistrate Court in Nassau.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Chairwoman of the House Committee on Financial Services issued a statement about Bankman-Fried's arrest, noting that he was scheduled to appear before Congress today. In part, Waters said:

“Although Mr. Bankman-Fried must be held accountable, the American public deserves to hear directly from Mr. Bankman-Fried about the actions that’ve harmed over one million people, and wiped out the hard-earned life savings of so many. The public has been waiting eagerly to get these answers under oath before Congress, and the timing of this arrest denies the public this opportunity. While I am disappointed that we will not be able to hear from Mr. Bankman-Fried tomorrow, we remain committed to getting to the bottom of what happened, and the Committee looks forward to beginning our investigation by hearing from Mr. John Ray III tomorrow.”

Credit: Sebastian Widmann/Getty Images

Following the stunning collapse of FTX last month, celebrities like Tom Brady and Steph Curry were named in a civil lawsuit.

These individuals, again, are not named in the criminal indictment.

Fox Business reported that, according to a 41-page court document, the civil suit names an array of high-profile FTX proponents, including "Sam Bankman-Fried, Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen, Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors, Shaquille O’Neal, Udonis Haslem, David Ortiz, William Trevor Lawrence, Shohei Ohtani, Naomi Osaka, Lawrence Gene David, and Kevin O’Leary."

It seeks to hold them "responsible for the many billions of dollars in damages they caused Plaintiff and the Classes and to force Defendants to make them whole."

The lawsuit, according to Fox's report, goes on to describe these well-known public figures as "parties who either controlled, promoted, assisted in, and actively participated in FTX Trading and FTX US (collectively, the "FTX Entities"), offer and sale of unregistered securities in the form of yield-bearing accounts (YBAs) to residents of the United States."

At this time, the lawsuit remains in litigation.

For those unfamiliar with the FTX downfall, on November 11, 2022, FTX filed for bankruptcy, wiping billions of dollars of value from the brand, billionaire CEO Fried, and the cryptocurrency market at large. 

Furthermore, fears that client funds were misused led to a run on FTX deposits, creating an estimated $8 billion liquidity shortfall -- if you know anything about the start of the Great Depression, this is in many ways a microcosm of what happened to the overall American economy in 1929 when people frantically liquidated their assets from banks. 

What do you think about Bankman-Fried's arrest?

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Feature Image Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images

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