SBF paid $40M bribe to unfreeze crypto trading accounts in China, US charges
Enlarge / Then-CEO of FTX Sam Bankman-Fried speaks during a House Committee on Financial Services hearing on December 8, 2021, in Washington, DC. (credit: Getty Images | The Washington Post)
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is facing a new criminal charge, with an updated indictment alleging that he violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act when he "authorized and directed a bribe of at least $40 million to one or more Chinese government officials."
The superseding indictment returned by a federal grand jury in New York yesterday, and unsealed today, said the bribe's purpose "was to influence and induce one or more Chinese government officials to unfreeze certain Alameda trading accounts containing over $1 billion in cryptocurrency, which had been frozen by Chinese authorities." Including the new charge, Bankman-Fried now faces 13 criminal counts.
In early 2021, Chinese law enforcement officials froze certain Alameda accounts on two of China's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, the indictment said. Bankman-Fried "understood that the Accounts had been frozen by Chinese authorities as part of an ongoing investigation of a particular Alameda trading counterparty."